Night light

this was a bit of a play around. The pic was taken at about 10:30pm, so it was pitch black outside. I set a long exposure and used a small torch to illuminate the old hydrangea heads. it didn't turn out so great, but it was fun. The camera wouldn't auto focus coz of the lack of light, so I used manual focus and kinda guesstimated how far way I was from the plant. I think I was lucky that it wasn't too far out. Next time I would probably go for a smaller aperture and longer ss, or even a higher iso. I guess I could also just take the pic earlier when there was still some light around but that would require me to be more organised.

iso 200, f 4, ss 15 sec, torchlight

Money

Another pretty poor, last minute pic. I really didn't think I was going to get a pic taken and up tonight as I have been talking to me sister on the phone for the last few hours. My sister is also my accountant and she has been telling me how much extra tax I'm going to have to pay this year. This was the inspiration for the shot. I wish this was all I had to pay.

cartoons

My kids watch way too many DVD's. I'm not in love with the tilt of this one, or the pic in general. The thing I like best is that one DVD is upside down. Thanks for looking

FJ 1100

Yesterday Shane bought a motorbike. But not just any bike, a 1985 Yamaha FJ 1100. It's the same as the one he had when we first met in 1992. Ahhhh, now that brings back some memories.

Thank you for the comments on my egg pics. The blue background in yesterdays pic was the back of the plastic backdrop on my fish tank. Great colour isn't it. You may well see lots more of it.

More eggs

Most days my chickens lay little eggs, some days they lay normal sized eggs and occasionally they lay super sized double yolk eggs. When I was a kid my grandmother had lots of chickens and it was so exciting if they laid a double yolker. I hadn't seen one of years until a few months ago we had a cartoon of store bought eggs and everyone was a double - my kids loved it. It must be the simple country girl in me, but I still get a kick out of double yolk eggs.

One of these things just doesn't belong here...

one of these things just isn't the same.

location, location, location.

Okay, the pic isn't so good, but how cool is this setting. I went for a bit of a drive this afternoon and found this place. It was just after sunset when I took the pic, so the lighting wasn't so good and the sky is awful. This is definitely a place to explore more. I ran SCP barely lighten up and then Aly's simple vintage, tweaked the curves and contrast a bit and sharpened. Ran it through noise wear a couple of times, its still pretty grainy - but I like the effect.

iso 1600, f 10, ss ?????

The lighthouse again

It's the lighthouse again. I think i like these ones better, but I still think I need to work on it. Ss I mentioned before, these lighthouses are surrounded my Flagstaff Hill Maritime museum. It's an lode worlde village with heaps of old buildings and stuff and the view from up there is just magnificent. Well, Joey is camping there tonight with the girl guides. The plan was to drop her off at 5:00pm and then go and take pics. Well we got there at about 5:00pm and I spent the next hour and a half putting up tents. It was like... put up the tent, move it 5 feet to the south, realise one zip is broken, turn it around 180 degrees, discover half the pegs were missing, pull out the ones holding the bottom down , use them for the ropes, finally get it kinda organised and then move on to the next one. They are only going for one night -aaarrgghh. So after all this I didn't have much time (or light) left to take pics. the really frustrating part was that the views were so much better from inside the village where the guides were, but my camera was in the car outside and once I went out I couldn't get back in. For something a bit different i thought I would use my 70-200 lens for these.

I'm 20 minutes late getting these ones up - I had to totally reorganise where my pics were on my computer - I have filled one hard drive.

Steak and Chips

Every Friday night Shane has steak and chips (with tomato sauce of course) for dinner. He has pretty much done it since he was a kid. I think he would have them every night of the week if he could. It's not the most glamorous pic. He tells me the chips didn't cook very well tonight. On Friday nights I usually have fish - tonight I had Thai style steamed salmon and steamed vegetables - can you tell I'm on a diet. Now you know why i have so many cans of tuna - actually they were on sale so Shane bought two of every variety. I was having on everyday, but I cut back coz i was worried about mercury poisoning :0


Thanks for the feedback on yesterdays pics. I did it - I entered the first one. I'll let you know if I win. Ha, Ha, If i win, I'll let the whole world know. Lauren thank you for the link to changing the perspective. I really struggle with that - all my buildings look like they are falling over.

Cross

I took these this afternoon at the local cemetery. I love the sun rays in the second one, but I'm not sure about my pp. It looks kinda dull compared to the first one, but maybe the first one is OTT.


I would love some HHCC on these. I am thinking of entering in a Easter photography competition run by a local church. Do you think these are good enough? Do they fit the theme?

iso 200, f 4.5, ss 1/5000

iso 200, f 20, ss 1/250

Thanks of looking

Tuna

yep, canned tuna. I had a stack about 2o high, but the full shot just didn't look right so I cropped it pretty tight. More playing with monochromatic conversions. This one was out of a magazine I recently read (Digital Camera World). It is really easy - Enhance>adjust color>hue/saturation. Check the colorize box and plug in the numbers - hue 220, saturation 35. Voila

iso 200, f 4, ss 1/250, speedlite flash

Playing around with conversions

These are a couple of pics I took this afternoon. Joey is at that age (9) where she can look so grown up in pics, but still wants to do things like walk along the rocks at the edge of the garden. I had a bit of a play around with conversions. They both started out as SCP barely sepia and then went from there. There is another pic, but I seem to have temporily lost it. I hate it when you save something and then can't work out where it is. Iso was 400, f 5.6, don't know the ss.

thank you for all the comments on my pics. I'll have to reshoot the lighthouse one - try and work on the composition a bit more. Surrounding the lighthouses is a olde worlde maritime village, Joey is camping there next weekend with the girl guides. It would be a fabulous place to take pics.

Heather i'll trade you a lighthouse and some rugged coastline for one of those amazing mountains that you have :)

The top lighthouse

A few days ago I posted a pic of the bottom lighthouse across the lake, well, this is the top lighthouse. You can just see the red top on the other one in the bottom right of this pic. the composition isn't so good - a bit too dead centre. The tricky part was to avoid power lines in the shot.

iso 400, f 13, ss 1/400, 17-85mm lens

I forgot to say a few things about the last few pics - too tired and rushed. The one of the lake and the lighthouse was take with my 70-200 lens. I was way over the other side of the lake trying to take pics of birds, but I had more luck with the scenery. This is another one from that outing. My DH liked this one better but I was too tired to finish pp'ing it. I love the lighting in this one.

The other girl in yesterdays pic is a friend of Joey's from dancing. They dance in the same section and her sister is Joey's teacher. She did really well yesterday - she won a championship dance and finished 3rd overall in there age group. Her tartan is also a Menzies dress, but in red. the two of them look so cute running around together in full dress.

Geelong highland day

Today Joey was dancing at the Geelong Highland Day. So we woke up at 5am, drove two and a half hours to Geelong, sat in the sun all day listening to bagpipe music and then drove home ( we got home at about 8:40pm). So now I am sunburnt, very tired and have a headache. The things we do for our children. Joey had a good time. She isn't the best dancer, by a long way, but she came equal third in one dance so she was happy. I took this pic with my old point and shoot. It's a shocking pic, but it represents my day. Joey is on the right, with the Menzies Dress Cerise tartan. She might not be the best dancer, but she has the prettiest kilt.

Shades of green

One of the things I like best about these lakes is all the different shades of green. The lighthouse in the background is actually more a navigation beacon. This one has a red light and there is a white light one further up the hill (near the flag pole). If you are coming into the bay you need to line the two lights up to be in the safe passage. The bay is just off to the left of the pic.


I'll post the settings tomorrow (or maybe Monday). Looking now I think the frame is too heavy.

Why one scooter is never enough

This is my boy's scooter. Last week I bought a scooter for the kids. Silly me, I should have known that you can't only get one scooter when you have three children. Needless to say, a few days later I was out getting two more. I wanted to take a photo of Chris on the scooter, but he wanted to play games on the computer instead. Again this was taken at night with my speedlite flash. The second one has some pretty harsh shadows but I think it looks okay.

iso 400, f 5.6, ss 1/250, speedlite

iso 400, f 4, ss 1/250, speedlite

Have a good weekend

Who is this bald woman

This is Alison, my work colleague, having her hair all cut off for the Australian Leukaemia Foundation's World's Greatest Shave day. We raised over a thousand dollars, which was good, but well short of the $4000 target. If we get to the target by the end of the week I'll shave my head too.


The photographer from the local newspaper was there, with his 70-200L 2.8 IS - talk about lens envy.

settings all auto - I know very slack

Orange

is my second favourite colour. This is a pic from a few weeks ago. These are the some of the ladies I work with and tomorrow Alison (the one in the middle looking very nervous) is going to have her head shaved (well very closely clipped) to raise money for the Leukaemia Foundation. She is very brave. I said I would shave mine too if we could raise $4000 - my hair is looking pretty safe at the moment, but I'll let you know how it goes tomorrow. This is her blog for the event http://www.worldsgreatestshave.com/profile.php?id=52539

This is my real pic for today. It's some of the green beads my DD's bought. It was taken in quite low light, with a small torch shinning on the beads. I would have liked the front beads to be more in focus, but oh well.

iso 400, f 5, ss 1/13

Yellowy Green

Okay, I don't really like this pic much, but it was the best one I took tonight and I'm too tired to take any more. The moral of the story is to be more organised and start taking pics before 10:00PM. I was taking these outside in the pitch dark with my flash on. The first dozen I took all turned out black - I thought I had broken my camera. It was only when I came inside that I realised I had the lens cap on - I am such an idiot. It was dark looking through the viewfinder, but I figured that was just coz it was such a dark night. These are my Quince fruit. They aren't quite ripe yet so they are still yellowy green. They are bright yellow when they are ripe. They are kinda a bit like an apple, but you cook them rather than eat them raw.

iso 400, f 2.8, ss 1/40, speedlite

Green

Green is my favourite colour. Always has been, always will be. These are some snow pea spouts I had in the fridge. I was going to use some asparagus, but I ate it for dinner - oops. The background was a bit light, so I darken it in levels, but some of the shadowy areas were lost - that's why if you look closely there are some seemingly disconnected leaves. I just looked at the setting - hummmm, I think I must have been playing f stop roulette, spin the dial and see where it stops.

iso 200, f 13, ss 1/5, speedlite

Jewelry Junkies

My DD's and I have spent most of this weekend making jewelry. I took Joey to a beginners class for her birthday last year but we haven't made any since then. Erica just worked it out by herself (we're not doing anything to complex). Bracelets, earrings, necklaces, we made them all. Joey is the only one with pierced ears so Erica said Jo could wear the earrings until she was old enough to have her ears pierced. I'm not a jewelry wearer much at all so most of it I'll give away (if the girls let me).


I was really happy with the exposure and colour of these pics. I cropped and sharpen a wee bit and added a soft light layer set at about 45%. I love the glow soft light adds. I'm using my computer that only has PSE4 so I didn't do any curves adjustment. Does the colour look okay or is it abit cold. I have 2 screens and on one the pics look lovely with a golden glow but on this one they kinda look pale and cold. All comments, opinions, suggestions and CC/HHCC welcome and appreciated.

iso 200, f 7.1, ss 1/200, focal length 66mm

iso 200, f 7.1, ss 1/200, focal length 80mm

clouds

Today I was going to take some pics with my 70-200 lens, but with clouds like this in the sky, I couldn't resist switching back to the 17-85. The first 4 were all taken at the wetland I as telling you about a few days ago. The last one is from my back yard. Not sure of the settings. I do know the iso was 1600 (aarrgghh - forgot to check). These were take at about 7:30 - 8:00 pm.


In #4, see that little bit of a hill in the distance on the right. Well that land is for sale - 31 acres, runs down to the river and over looks this wetland and then the sea behind were I was standing. Hummm, I wonder how much they want for it and if I can win the lottery before the sale.

Dead

I almost didn't have a picture today. I took a few pics, but they were really bad and then my battery died. I have to admit I am really slack about charging it, so it was no surprise. So making the best of the situation, I took this pic with my old P & S. The conversion started out like SCP true B&W, but then kinda went off on a tangent

Pizza place

This is one of our local pizza places. We never get pizza from there, so it doesn't actually make my life easier at all. I just like the building, the white against the blue sky. I boosted the saturation in this a fair bit.

iso 400, f 14, ss 1/500

Shane

my life would be so much harder (and not as much fun) without him. For the last 6 years Shane has been a SADH while I have worked. He has done almost all the cleaning, cooking, shopping, running around after the kids - the works. He has enjoyed it and it has been great for the kids to be able to spend so much time with him. Today he started a new job.

iso 200, f 5.6, ss 1/160, speedlite flash

Sanity saver

Just a quick snap I took on the way home from the gym. This place is my sanity saver. It is a local wetland (swamp) and it is so quite and peaceful there. I love the different shade of green of the grasses and the reeds. It is such an interesting place to go and take photos.

iso 400, f 11, ss 1/160

Wash the dishes, dry the dishes

This is our new dishwasher. The old one stopped going about 12 months ago and it has taken this long to get a new one. I have to admit that Shane used the dishwasher a lot more than I do. He doesn't think I stack it properly so even if I do it, he often reloads it. Easier just to let him do it the first times I think. Anyway, after 6 years of being a full time SAHD and a part time University student, Shane is just about to start a new job. So I guess I'm have to become better acquainted with the dishwasher and all the other household appliances.

iso 400, f/5, ss 1/100, speedlite flash

I'm not thrilled with the frame I put on this one, but I'm too lazy to change it.


Take care

My Glasses

I'm long-sighted so I can see fine without them, but I get headaches and sore eyes. I have had the same Rx since I was in high school, but I have to admit that as 40 is approaching (way too quickly) I'm starting to find really close stuff can be a bit of a struggle. These are my latest glasses, but I have about 4 pairs that I kinda alternate. With work we get a couple of free pairs a year so that helps alot. So this is me- wrinkles and all. About the closest thing I have done to a self portrait.

My Teddy Bear

This is my poor sad old teddy bear. His name is Reddy Teddy (yes he once was red and white and fluffy). I got him for my first Christmas from my Grandparents. When I was little I used to take him everywhere. All the photos of me feature him too. As you can see he is a little worse for wear. Almost all his seams have been re-sewn, but now the actual material is so worn through, I don't really know how to repair him. I guess I could put on new material, but then he would be all new and it just wouldn't be the same.

iso 400, f 2.8, ss 1/200, speedlite

iso 400, f 1.8, ss 1/200, speedlite

Thank you everyone for looking at my blog and for the comments. Joey had fun dancing today. She didn't do so good, but she enjoyed it.

Heather, I meant to say, no I don't have a light box. For the makeup pic I used a white sheet as the background and got Shane to hold it up at the back so I could bounce the flash off it. I had to PP a bit to make it white, especially the areas of shadow at the front. One day I'll get a light box.

Dancing kit

My DD Joey does Scotish Highland dancing. Tomorrow she has a competition so tonight I have to get all her stuff sorted. This is her small bag for all her sock, shoes, hair ties, assorted pins and thread and everything else that may be needed. Yep it's a Chatterbox scrapbooking case. She also has the big one for her costumes. The tartan she dances in matches the pink socks in the pic - it's really pretty. They also do some Irish dances, hence the green socks. I'm the president of the local Highland Dancing Society - it's a bit of a joke really coz there are only about a dozen members and apart from me they are all related. The other kids all have mothers who danced and grandmothers who danced. Poor Jo coz I really know nothing about it so I'm not much help when she is practising.

iso 400, f 5, ss 1/40, Speedlite flash

My Garden

My garden is full of roses. I had about 70, but I lost some when we put in a new side fence. These ones are flowering like crazy at the moment and the perfume is just divine. Now if I really wanted to show something about me, I'd have a pic of all the weeds in my garden. Have a nice day everyone.

iso 100, f 4, ss 1/1250