At age 21, I got my very first manual camera, a canon F1 from my ex-boyfriend. I loved the camera because of all the fond memories of learning to take pictures and some of my favorite B&W pictures were taken with it (from first roll of B&W). I liked to go places with it strapped around one shoulder to my back. It was made of steel, not only was it heavy to carry for long trips, it also hurt like hell whenever I bent over to tie my shoe lace and it would hit me on the head from behind. Six years later, my ex-boyfriend and I finally separated. I purchased my first digital SLR, (a Canon Rebel XT). Boyfriends may come and go, but photography is staying with me. The passion for photography just grew and grew, partially thanks to the wonderful friends that let me harass them at inconvenient moments, their support, inspiration, and appreciation.

People say a picture is worth a thousand words. I say it’s worth a million more with words. I started writing blogs as a morning warm up for my PhD thesis. Then it became another outlet for creativity. Then it became an addiction. Sometimes, I write about stories, events that happen in the pictures, ideas inspired by the pictures, or sometimes, they have no relations whatsoever. Sometimes I put on YouTube that I like. And then sometimes I evaluate some photography related tool. It’s a personal blog that I keep for my personal pleasure. I do hope that it ultimately inspires in people beauty, ideas, happiness, love for photography and life in general.

I take mostly pictures of flowers, people, food and landscapes. In the past, I did some product shots for a friend’s company Compendium. I’m available for freelance photography. Contact: haomli(at)gmail.com.

Copyright to my pictures is specified by the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-NoDerivs 2.0. The pictures are free to share, copy, display for non-commercial purposes only. Please credit me for the work with something like Photography courtesy Maya Hao Li. Also, please do not alter the work without my permission. Contact me for high resolution prints or if you wish to pay for use.