History of LightPress

At age 21, I received my very first manual camera as a gift from an ex-boyfriend. I learned about light meters, aperture, and shutter speed with it. Some of my favorite B&W pictures were taken with it (first roll of B&W). I went everywhere with it strapped around one shoulder on my back. It was made of steel, not only was it heavy to carry for long trips, it also hurt like hell hitting me on the head whenever I bent over to tie my shoe lace. Six years later, as a personal gift to myself, I purchased my first digital SLR, (a Canon Rebel XT). Then I purchased another one three years after that. My cameras have become my best travel companions. I rely on pictures to recall the best time of my life. 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 talk about the technical aspects of photography. Recently, I started to write poems (maybe to avoid following English grammar). It’s a personal blog that I keep for my personal pleasure. I hope that it ultimately inspires in people beauty, ideas, happiness, love for photography and life.

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.

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. Also, please do not alter the work without my permission. Contact me for high resolution prints or if you wish to pay for use.

11 thoughts on “History of LightPress”

Kimchihead on June 6, 2007 at 12:12 am said:

When are you gonna take a picture of me??? LOL Just kidding. Your photos look great. I’m very impressed. :)

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Maya on October 8, 2007 at 8:12 pm said:

Thank you. I hope to become a better writer, like you. :)

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Athrun on May 5, 2008 at 8:57 am said:

Hello i just happend to come upon your website when i googled Ikkusan. I assume you might be Chinese?(since china is prob the only place i have ever seen ikkusan). i still dont know what this website is about but i think you are doing a good job with this diary entry thing. the photos are also very unique. i hope you will continue expanding your photo/diary entrys since i have bookmarked this page and hope to veiw it again some other time.

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Maya on May 7, 2008 at 10:44 pm said:

Hi Athrun! Thanks for reading my blog and complements about my photos. It’s really cool to know someone out there knows where I’m talking about! :) I’m constantly finding more inspiration to write more or take better pictures. Please feel free to chat on the website or just browse or share your own blog if you decide to write one.

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Corey on December 25, 2008 at 12:04 am said:

Awesome blog (and photos!)!

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Amjed on August 29, 2009 at 9:24 am said:

Maya,

I was directed to your site looking for a picture that reflected peace amid a storm to put up in my office.

Thank you for capturing the awe-inspiring beauty of this world and sharing with people like me who unfortunately don’t get an opportunity to travel to such places.

I have a feeling I’ll be visiting your site again. :)

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- cocoadream on August 30, 2009 at 11:07 pm said:
  
  Amjed: I really appreciate your message. It’s seldom that people leave words here but when they do they give me more motivation to shoot and share these pictures. Hope you will continue to enjoy these photos.
  
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Michele Parrish on March 22, 2010 at 7:51 pm said:

What is your twitter name? Your twitter link isn’t working to add you to follow..just takes me to Twitter. I love our pictures and am taking my first photography picture this week. I read that you chose a Canon Digital SLR. Any advice to a novice but inspiring hobbiest? Most important to me is to be able to quickly get a shot (time to take the picture) as I have a little one year old and she moves quick!

Thanks,
Michele

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- Maya Li on March 24, 2010 at 2:21 am said:
  
  Thanks for the nice note, Michele. I don’t twit but didn’t realize that the twitter feature was turned on. As for shooting a fast moving one year old, try to use a fast shutter speed. Switch from single shot to continuous shot. Thank you again for your interest.
  
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dld self narration on August 14, 2010 at 4:02 am said:

What a Nice Find
ing You! I’ll have to be sure to Spend some time, later, to read & look at all the More’s!
~Denise. dldselfnarration

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Josh Gross | The Jaguar on November 13, 2016 at 5:10 pm said:

Hey there, I don’t know if you still check this site, but I wanted to let you know that I used one of your photos as the featured image in my latest blog post. The photo doesn’t have a title that I could find, but it is of Holden Village. Everything has been cited properly, and I wanted to thank you for designating your photo under a Creative Commons license.

If you’d like to see how I used your image, you may do so here: https://thejaguarandallies.com/2016/11/13/what-wild-places-mean-to-me/

Once again, thank you.

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