Finding my phojo

You might have noticed that I haven't posted (or mentioned) photos for a while.

There are a couple of reasons, and I hope I am addressing them, because I am missing it a bit.
It was the same with blogging - I got a bit distracted etc and wasn't doing it regularly, but I think I'm back on track now!

Firstly, at the concert and memorial dedication at Sam's school I took a lot of photos. Photos that I would really like to see, but I can't because they are trapped on the XD card. They are RAW files, and it was the first time I had used the card; and I just don't know what's going on. I can view them in the camera, but cannot upload them onto a computer. I have tried online recovery software and mum took it into Ted's for me, but no luck yet.
So I haven't used that camera since then. Which is a bummer.

Also, the last lesson in my morguefile course was about panning shots, and I just could not get it right! So I've kinda given up on that for a while.

And then there's that "I'm not that good at this" feeling that keeps creeping up on me. I am trying to get over it, I promise, but all in all, it's made me lose my phojo!

But I am going to try and get excited again. In the meantime, here's a couple of gorgeous shots of Oliver in his latest obsession - suits and ties! The first one my mum took, and I took the next two.


What a little poser! Isn't he gorgeous?

Saturday's Sensational Six

Hi all!
The weekend's come around again. How quickly the years move by as we get older!

I had a pretty nice first week back at school. The kids tend to lull you into a false sense of security until the second week or so, then...

My first Friday off was good. I got to walk Ollie up to school, and even got to go to his assembly.
I did some gardening, had a nice relaxing lunch in the sunshine, and then went out to take some photos. What a great day! So glad I made the move that I did!

But I've gotta say, life's weird sometimes. Y'see, there's this job I've been wanting for about two years now, working with teachers to help them use technology well in their classrooms etc. I've done heaps of professional development in this area, and have even presented a couple of workshops.
I'd been hoping the job would come up all year, as a few of the staff I know there are off on maternity leave.
Well, wouldn't you know it, just as I get myself organised with work etc, the job finally comes up for application! What timing!
Of course, I'll apply for it. I'd regret it forever if I didn't. Wish me luck!

Oh, and I performed my good deed for the week (year?) this year. When I was on my way out to take photos on Friday, I ended up behind a poor soul stuck broken down in the middle of a three-lane road. Everyone else just drove around him, but I thought I'd help him.
So I helped him push his car all the way over to the side of the road. Just me, with him steering.
We'd just got it off the road when I noticed a police car (lights flashing) coming up behind my car, which was still parked in the middle lane. I thought I was done for, but he just thanked me for helping the other driver and sent me on my way.
So I felt a bit better knowing that I'd helped someone. Just a warm, mushy feeling for a while, nothing more (I no longer believe in karma, for reasons I think I've made clear).

Anyway, I'm sure I'll have more news soon. In the meantime, here's my photos for this week:

A photo of Sam

Another 'undiscovered' photo. It was taken in October last year. Lovely.

A photo of Oliver

Last Saturday, Ollie and I and my friend Deb walked up Mount Taylor, a rather steep and challenging mountain. Ollie, of course, was at least 100m ahead of us the whole time, and stood at the top (and the bottom) saying 'it's about time' as we puffed our way up.

An old photo
Me in about 1974. Quite the stylish one, even then...

An Interesting Photo
I took this on Mount Stromlo the other night. The building in the foreground was one of the telescopes that were burned during the bushfires of 2003. I love this photo, except that I managed to overexpose the sky in the background, and I'm not sure how to fix it.

My weekly entry into the EB photo of the week challenge:

This week's theme is 'buildings'. This is one of the the buildings that used to house the telescopes before the bushfires. It's pretty much empty now. Sad.
Morguefile Lesson Photos

Lesson 4 - White Balance
This storyboard has shows all the different white balance settings in the camera. Each photo is of a white piece of paper. Isn't it amazing that hardly any of them are actually white?!

Saturday's Sensational Six

Hi all,

You thought I'd miss another Saturday, didn't you??
Well, I nearly did. I had a very busy day today. Starting with a difficult (because I'm so unfit) but satisfying (because we made it to the top!) walk up Mount Taylor with Deb and Ollie, some digging out the back, and then dinner with some friends at their place (K's family). A lovely, but tiring day.

But because I am going to try and write a post tomorrow, I thought I'd better put my photos up today. Thanks to those of you who have left comments and sent emails; I now have a few ideas to write about.

So here are today's six:

A photo of Sam

I love that nearly 7 months after he died, I can still get the occasional photo of Sam that I haven't seen before. This one was on my mother-in-law's camera. Lovely smile...

A photo of Oliver

I love this photo. It looks like one bird just told Ollie a secret and he's passing it on.

An old photo
This was taken around 1992, when I was 18. It's on my godmother's farm down near Moruya (I would move there in a heartbeat, I love her property!)

An Interesting Photo
I took this on Monday when Ollie and I went for our huge ride. The lake was like glass. (The next two days were wet and cold and horrible, but Monday was great!)

My weekly entry into the EB photo of the week challenge:

This week's theme is 'sculpture'. I read recently in a photography magazine that you shouldn't just reproduce someone else's artwork, that if you're going to photograph a sculpture, you should try and do something different with it. So I came up with this. This is a photo of a kinetic (moving) sculpture down by Lake Tuggeranong. It's called 'Angel Wings' and it's by an artist named Phil Price. I'm pretty happy with it. It was taken about half an hour after sunset, at a shutter speed of 5 seconds, and has been processed a little in 'Lightroom' (mainly cropping and colour enhancing.
This is what it looks like in the day time (and from the other side):

Morguefile Lesson Photos

Lesson 3 - ISO

This storyboard has two identical photos taken with the lowest and highest ISO settings. You can really see the 'noise' in the second one.

Saturday's Sensational Six

Ok, I've got that out of my system. Time for photos.

A great photo of Sam
Here's the last of the 'new' photos we found on Samuel's phone.

Very similar to another photo. He must have liked this 'theme'.

A great photo of Oliver

For my photo scavenger hunt: "The eyes of someone you love." Taken on my iPhone, hence the 'graininess'.

An old photo
Sam must have been about 10 when this one was taken. Early on in the whole 'Anthony breeding parrots' thing. He has hundreds now!

An Interesting Photo
My alternate for the EB challenge. Taken on Thursday morning when I went down to the lake. It was -3 degrees.

My weekly entry into the EB photo of the week challenge:

This week's challenge was 'Perspective (lie down on the ground and take the photo).
So I lay down on the freezing ground next to the lake. I do like it, though there wasn't quite enough fog for my liking. The swan hissing while I lay there at me was a little unnerving, too.

Morguefile Lesson Photos

Lesson 2 - Aperture and Shutter speed. Assignment 1.

This is a storyboard showing the full range of aperture values (f-stops) on my camera (at a shutter speed of 1/80). If I had a more advanced camera, there would be a whole lot of dark ones as well. That's it. I'm buying a new camera for my birthday! (Shame it's another 7 months away!)

Saturday's Sensational Six

Things have been pretty, well, crap lately. And sometimes when life's getting like that I lose all my motivation and don't feel like doing anything. I must say, I had a day like that yesterday, with very little accomplished; and it's taken me a bit to get moving today too.
I still feel yucky, with a constant headache and that horrible sinusy feeling, but the antibiotics seem to be kicking in, so hopefully that will change soon.
But one of the places I do like to escape to is my little online world. I'm going to write about it again soon, but today I'm glad it was there.

So I thought I'd do my six for today. Here goes:

A great photo of Sam
On Thursday, when we got that 'news', Anthony and I went and sat in Sam's room for a while. I picked up his phone and turned it on. Months ago, when I'd turned it on there had been nothing coming up on the memory card. I had thought it was just empty, but there must have been some kind of glitch, because this time, all his data was there. So we found three new photos of Sam that we hadn't seen yet. This is one of them:

It's a real 'Sam' photo!

A great photo of Oliver

I love the look of concentration on Ollie's face.

An old photo
This is another photo of Anthony and I at my 21st. When I posted the other one last week, Mum went looking and found this one. I don't think I've ever seen it!
It's funny, mum said she at first didn't recognise Anthony. He does look very different now I guess!

An Interesting Photo
This is an alternative to the one I entered in the photo of the week challenge. I love how the tree with leaves seems to be 'reaching out' to the tree without.
This was taken on Urambi Hill, not far from my house (about 7km or so).

My weekly entry into the EB photo of the week challenge:

This week's challenge was 'Solitude'.

Morguefile Lesson Photos

This week was the last week of the first lesson in my 'Morguefile' course, so I haven't got any for the new lesson yet (it started today).So I've decided to show you another of my abstracts. You can view all the photos I take for the course on my Flickr, but here are the first two assignments:

Lesson 1: Composition

I love this photo. Everything just 'worked'.

Today was also the start of a photography scavenger hunt that I'm taking part in. Soooo much fun! You can see my entries in my Flickr photostream.

Saturday's Sensational Six x2

I missed last Saturday as I was in Melbourne and very very busy, so I thought I'd post two of each this week.
I'm really enjoying posting photos. It means I have some of my favourite photos stored online (I also have my Flickr account, which I am slowly filling with photo-ey goodness), which is always a good idead when you have so many photos on a computer, and no negatives. It also gives me an excuse to look through all my old photos and pick out the ones I love (which means I also get to discover photos I haven't noticed/seen in a while).

A great photo of Sam

Sam would have been about 9 months old when my dad took this photo/ I love it.
Samuel and I at the snow (Mt Franklin) last year. Anthony (obviously) took this one.

A great photo of Oliver

How cute is he?

My beautiful boy on the big tree (some kind of fig?) at Melbourne Zoo.

An old photo

Our back deck when it was first built in 2004. Soon I'll post some pictures of what it (And our back yard) is looking like now.

This is Anthony and I at my 21st, about 100 years ago (actually, 1994).

An Interesting Photo
Sunset at Frankston.

Another from Melbourne. Obviously at the zoo.

My weekly entry into the EB photo of the week challenge:

Last week's challenge was 'Abstract'.

This week's challenge is 'Tell a Story'. I think this one tells a story about Oliver! (Don't worry, the train wasn't actually moving, but I do like how you have to look twice to work that out).

Morguefile Lesson Photos
This week, I started a 'Morguefile' course. It's a strange name, but it's basically on online course designed to help you improve your skills in photography. You can view all the photos I take for the course on my Flickr, but here are the first two assignments:

Lesson 1: Composition
The first assignment was to take an abstract photograph, with the aim of developing understanding of concepts like leading lines, rule of thirds etc. Taking abstract photos really forces you to concentrate on the composition. The one above (the blue and yellow one) was another one that I took. The rest are in my Flickr album.

Lesson 2: Composition
The second assignment was to take a lot of pictures of the same subject: close-up, long range, from the top, from underneath, from different angles and of different parts, then put the best ones together in a storyboard. I created the storyboard using Picasa. I'm very happy with it.

The best part of the Morgufile group is that we post our pictures on a group pool and everyone makes comments about each other's. It's a great way to learn, and I can see improvements in my pictures already.