Nearly Caught Up (not!)

Day 106 - 14th November 11 -  Dinner

I was going to include a photo of dinner tonight as one of the challenges I have set myself is to improve my food photography, however once I looked through my photo's I liked this better - just wish it would rotate properly.  This is my garage - I like the contrast between the wood and sandstone with the flowers in between

 

Day 107 - 15th Nov 11 - Oyster Rocks

I have started a group training session down by the water each Tuesday night which I am loving - I'm back into my boxing and I'm heaps fitter than I thought I was which is a good thing.  Tonight I took the camera down to training to try and get some shot's around the water.  I'll probably try and do this a bit as Brisbane Waters is such a beautiful place at sunset.  I took a few Bokeh photo's but I decided I like these rocks better.














Day 108 - 16th Nov 11 - Stormy Sunrise

Took a few more bokeh photo's today and am starting to get the hang of the concept but still not happy enough to post a photo and I really like the leaves in this photo - it was taken on my way to the station at around 6.15am - a storm was coming over the mountain and I thought the clouds looked cool.






Day 109 - 17th Nov 11 - Trees

I saw these paperbark trees on the way to work and thought they would provide great inspiration so on my way home I stopped and took a few shot's - it was pouring rain and I had heaps of work equipment so I'm pleased that they are not all blurry!!  I actually took more than a few and it was hard to decide which one I liked best - but I love love love this photo - the colour, the peeling shapes.




Day 110 - 18th Nov 11 - Self Portraits

Didn't really know what to take today as I worked in Gosford and it was a full on day, then I went shopping and home to cook yummy food and relax.  I got this mirror from work yesterday and plan to paint it and hang it so I thought I would take a self portrait and play with a few of the app's on my phone. I decided to make a collage of the different photos. 

I'm still here!

Well it's been awhile since I checked in here, life is really hectic at the moment, work is busy and I'm now dancing or training 4 out of 7 nights a week and usually out partying for 2 of the other 3 so my one night off is usually spent in front of the couch doing nothing. 

But I am still taking photo's so that is a good thing.

Day 101 - 9th November 11 - Queens Scout

Congratulations to my gorgeous friend (and blog reader!!!) Miss Bronte on achieving this special award.  It was a privilege to be part of your special night - I'm so proud of you.

Day 102 - 10th November 11 - Patterns

Once again I left my photography til the last minute - luckily I have a house full of pretty things to shoot.  I got given this lovely candle holder for my birthday and I thought it would make some nice patterns - unfortunately hardly any of the photo's worked out - maybe it was the wine, maybe I just wasn't being patient enough as I was taking these in the adds of my favourite show - but this one was the best of an average bunch. 

 

Day 103 - 11/11/11 - Beach

Pretty ominous number pattern hey and the number 1 is my fav/ lucky number.  I went to the beach for a walk after work today and got some lovely shots - I'm going to submit them to a web competition dedicated to 11/11/11.  This bird flying is my fav though - it's just a bit different to my usual beach shots. 

Day 104 - 12th November 11 - I'm a great big Tiger

Dad came up and did work on the house today which was brilliant - once I have finished painting etc then I will share the results of his hard work.  I then had a BBQ at a friends house which was lovely before hitting Terrigal Pub for a night out on the dance floor with my dance friends - so much fun!!  This is Tina and Aidan singing "I'm a great big Tiger" and growling at me, he is at such a fun age at the moment and learning how to talk and sing and dance. 

Day 105 - 13th November 11 -  Pretty 

I just styled this part of my home today after doing a bit of a kitchen clean and picking some flowers from my garden so I thought I would share how pretty it looks.  I am reading more and more about how all the home magazine spreads are styled and cropped so I'm going to try and take a few more "stylised" shots over the next few months of my lovely home. 

100 Days Down

Day 98 - Sunday 6th November - Bokeh

Hungover today - I went and hung out at an old friend's house last night as I was feeling a bit hypo after the performance and we ended up having quite a big night - no surprises there - but boy am I feeling it today.  Also Summer weather has finally arrived and it is stinking hot - whooo.  I did attempt to start cleaning up around the house today and I found my old SLR Camera which had a 30mm lens attached to it - I was excited to find another lens which I can use and even more excited to discover that my BOKEH kit works with this lens- hooray - so today's photo is my first experiment - can you see the little butterflies in the light in the background - hopefully i will have some time soon to go out and take some more.

Day 99 - Monday 7th November - Easy Money 

As mentioned previously, monday's are a bit hectic for me and today was worse than usual.  to the point that I was actually in bed almost asleep when at about 11.00pm I remembered that I hadn't taken my photo for the day.  So this is a bit lame, but I did a market research today at Erina and got paid $100 to talk about buying Coffee for an hour - so today's photo is my easy money!!!!

Day 100 - Tuesday 8th November

How exciting a third of the way through - these are my vegies for dinner for the next few nights, I thought i would be fun to set up a photo and as I'm still on my Health Kick I decided to use the vegetables rather than buying M&M's as was my original plan to celebrate 100 days so far of photography - here's to 265 more!!!!!!!

Everyday I'm Samba-ing!!

Day 97 - Saturday 5th November - Samba

I had my first public dance performance today and my beautiful friends and family came along to help me celebrate.  It was a bit of a drama filled morning as they almost bumped us out of the program, but after a few words and changes in program we finally got to perform our routine in The Hive at Erina Fair.  To say I was nervous was an understand - I mean I'm still not feeling confident about my stomach and I had to not only bare it in public but dance at the same time (ie wobbly bits!!!).  But I did it and I had a blast.  My bestie Tina took heaps of photo's today so I am dedicating this whole post to Central Coast Dance Fit Day.  As the project however is about me taking photo's I thought I better get a few shots also.  Luckily we went out to lunch afterwards and the kids were being cute - so whilst there are some great dance shot's here - today's photo is dedicated to the lovely Aidan again - he kept popping out of this tunnel and saying TA-DA - you can see in his face how happy he is with himself.  Tina's kids are starting to become a bit of a regular feature of this blog and project and as we have quite a few fun day's and potentially a holiday over Summer I'm sure there will be plenty more to come.

Roses/ Macro

Day 95 - Roses Thursday 3rd November

Worked in Gosford today which means I got home early which just makes me so happy.  I have a wild rose tree in my front garden and it is finally blooming and it had been raining today so I thought I would get the macro lens out and get some photo's.  I can't tell you how happy I am with these - I have posted a few as they all worked so well.  I really should use my macro lens a bit more as it helps me take great photo's.  Deciding which one to use was the hardest bit but I have decided to go with the buds as they are a bit different and look so good.

Day 96 - View - Friday 4th November

Had a funeral today and had a day off but only took 3 photo's all day, I guess I wasn't feeling very creative afterwards.  The clouds were awesome this morning when I woke up but I thought I would share my water views with you as it was such a clear day.  This is my view from my front verandah and it changes frequently depending on the weather.  I feel so lucky to have such a pretty outlook.

November

Wow - it's hard to believe it is November already.  Ok a quick wrap up of the week.

Monday 31st Oct - New Dresses

I went shopping on the weekend, I was feeling good about myself and just decided to blow it and take some money out of my savings and get some new clothes.  So for under $200 I got 3 dresses, a work top, singlet and a pair of shorts - not a bad effort hey.  I could have spent more but fortunately the shop that I liked the remainder of the clothes didn't do layby - oh well their loss!!

Tuesday 1st November

Melbourne Cup Day - I probably should have taken a photo of the race but I didn't think about it.  I had an ADO today (yay) and spent the day with the fam having lunch at my cousin's house which was brilliant.  Today's photo is my cousin Tepaea - I know the lighting is terrible in this shot and I forgot to change my ISO back from 1600 so it is a bit grainy (whoops). But she is the most beautiful little girl and she cracks me up.  This is a typical face that she pulls for photo's and she loves getting up close to the camera. Didn't win on the cup but my sister won $1000!!!!

Wednesday 2nd November

Whoops didn't take many photo's today - this was taken on my way to work, I was trying to capture the sunlight through the trees - not the best photo I've taken but it's a pretty spectacular tree!!

 

Need more time in the day!!!

Ok - I'm going to try and make these post's brief as I am still behind - sounding a bit like a broken record but I have run out of downloads for the month and don't feel comfortable doing this at work - so I am catching up at my parents house tonight as they have a larger internet download than I do. But of course I have verbal typing diarrhoea and can't just write short posts!!

I am starting to feel a bit more positive about taking photo's - just wish I could do it as a full time career - that would make me so happy - but I would need to improve my skills extensively if this dream was ever to come true!!

Day 88 - 29th October - Babushka's

Didn't get home til late again tonight and wasn't really sure what to photograph - then these jumped out at me.  At first I was just taking the white measuring cup ones then I thought I would get my real Russian dolls and put them all together.  I have two lot's of Babushka's - the first I got when I was really young from one of my Aunty's who travelled overseas - the second was from my lovely friends Jo & Iain when they went to Russia a few years ago - you can see the difference in age in the doll's and I am missing one of these - Miss Jemima was playing with them one day and who knows where in my house it ended up!!.  The white ones are measuring cups and they sit on my bench like this and I do actually use them - much nicer than the plain old ones stuck in a drawer.   

Day 89 - Friday 28th October - Halloween

Had a Halloween party today, in contradiction to my last statement, I actually wasn't really in the mood to be taking photo's as I had a crappy day at work and was feeling a bit blah.  The party was great - got to catch up with all my young friends and spent some time hanging with my lovely friend Erin before the party and I looked HOT!!!  All this working out at dance and having a spray tan made me feel awesome - this links to tomorrow's photo also - but back to today, I was wearing this lovely little skull around my neck as I was dressed as a cannibal and so I set him up against the candle and put on the candle effect on my camera - I think it is a really funky photo.

Day 90 - Sat 29th October - Looking Down

I totally forgot to get a photo of me at the party with my friends and all dressed up so when I got home I put my costume back on and took a few self portraits - of course they didn't work out because of the light and the angle of my mirror but as I really like my leg's at the moment and had been paid heaps of compliments about how good they looked throughout the night - I decided to take a photo looking down at my legs - looking down is also a topic on my back up idea's list.  I love how you can just see the line of feathers and how it makes my leg's look long when really they are not. 

Had my first big performance tonight at my dance school - the feathers are part of my costume as per one of my previous posts.  It went really well, we had a Halloween party and I got up and shook my bootie - had a minor costume malfunction just before the show - as I have lost a bit of weight lately my skirt is now too big for me and I had to be pinned into it but otherwise all went well.  Next we have to perform in public at my local shopping centre - need to get Mum to fix my costume first though!!

Day 91 - Sun 30th October - Chhheeeessseee
Have been looking forward to today for awhile.  It is my beautiful friend Robyn's engagement party in the domain and Tina, the kids and I are heading down for a picnic in the park and catching up with some old friends.  It was such a beautiful day - the sun was shining, I was wearing a new dress, my spray tan is still looking good and we got to catch up with some beautiful friends.  I love seeing all my old buddies as they know you so well and I am fortunate enough to have wonderful people that come and go in my life and still remain good friends even though we might not talk all the time or only see each other every few months/ years.  Was hard to decide which photo to publish today - my best photo or the photo of my friends.  I decided to go with this photo of Miss Jemima as this is her favourite pose for taking photo's - she always scrunches her face up and yells out CHEESE!!

Still catching up

Sat 22nd Oct - Day 83

Summer Weather is finally here so we got out and about bright and early today.  We had breakfast at a local cafe and then headed to a few fete's.    I then went to a BBQ at an old Rover freind's house who lives on the coast which is exciting and also great to catch up with some old friends.  Tonight was a quite one - watched the movie Water for Elephants - totally recommended it if your looking for a good movie to watch. I decided to dedicate today's photo to Breakfast because it was so tasty!

Sun 23rd Oct - Day 84

Again another brilliant sunny day - I spent the morning in the garden weeding - I managed to fill a green bin full of weeds - I am determined to get the jungle tamed over the next few weeks so I can then start designing and working out what to plant over the summer - hopefully I can finally get my herb garden started.  I then had a 1st Birthday party to go to - it was my friend Bec's little girl Lia - it was good to catch up with Bec and Erin as I haven't seen them for a few weeks and it was a nice chilled out afternoon hanging at the Canty residence.  This is Lia and all her toy's - I think Fisher

 Price should sponsor them she has so many of their products!!!

Monday 24th Oct - Day 85

Walked out the front door at the sparkling hour (not) of 6.00am this morning only to notice that I had some new flowers  I think they are lillies - they grow over my fish pond which I need to drain as all my fish have died (sad face) when they flower it is only for a few days (they are dead already!!) so I thought I would capture these as my flower of the week as I know how hectic monday's are and I doubt I'll have time to shoot anything else today.

Tuesday 25th Oct - Day 86

Totally uninterested in taking photo's this week - am running out of ideas on what to photograph and it's only Day 86 - mmm going to have to seek inspiration somehow - I'm going to blame my lack of motivation on the weather - we had Summer for two brilliant days and it's gone again - hopefully my motiviation will pick up soon!!  I ended up at K-mart tonight and as it is only 2 months til Xmas decided to dedicated today to the Big Man himself - these were taken on my phone, hence the collage.





Wednesday 26th Oct - Day 87

This is my life at the moment - I lost my Itunes about a month ago so I am busy burning all my CD's again - it is a very long process and even though I try to do it a few nights a week, I'm still only up to the letter F - yes I'm anal and catalogue my CD's in alphabetical order!!

Really need to start learning more about how to blog as once again I can't turn this picture around - quite annoying really - will add it to the list for my January Holidays!!

So far behind

Mon 17th Oct - Day 78

Went for a walk at lunch with just my phone today and saw this stunning rose - couldn't resist - so here is my flower of the week - wish I had the big camera as I reckon I could have got some awesome shots of this.

Tues 18th Oct - Day 79

The circus is in town this week, so I went for a walk to try and get some photo's of the tent.  I'm not actually going to go to the show - but I like the angles of the tent against the blue sky!

Wed 19th Oct - Day 80

Went to Mum and Dad's for dinner today and I was taking a few photo's around the house, a few flower macro photos and I was trying to capture the local cockatoo's but none of them were that spectacular.  I chose this one as I like the colours in this puppet - this is hanging on the wall and was a present from my brother from India I think. (sorry again wouldn't rotate)

Thurs 20th Oct - Day 81

Had a super hectic day today and it was really really late when I remembered I still hadn't taken a photo - these are the bottles of wine that I bought on the weekend - this is the best wine I have had in ages and is from Mudgee - the Chardonnay tastes like butter and the Rose is really sweet and light - now just need to save up and order some more.  Tina made a discovery tonight - did you know that word Char"donna"y has my name in it - cool hey - we never realised this until today and of course the two of us found it totally amusing - so nobody can tease me now about my love of a good Chardy!!!

Fri 21st Oct - Day 82

Went to Tina's tonight to hang out with her and the kids and as always her gorgeous kids are always up for a photo shoot.  For ages now I have been trying to get a nice self portrait of Jemima and I and I got two today - then Aidan jumped in also - are they cute!!! 

Days 75 - 77

Day 75 - Friday 14th Oct

Tonight I finished my competition entry for the next phase of the Canon Photo 5 Comp - I had to shoot some sequins in low light - I decided to make a sequin disco ball - I hung the ball up against my glass door and lit a few candles around the house, set up the tripod and started taking photo's - these are some of the results. I ended up missing the competition entry date but i'm pretty happy with these photo's. Apologies for the spacing, having problems getting it right today!

Day 76 - Sat 15th Oct

I didn't take any photos during the day today as I had a boring day cleaning and I knew I was going out so I could get some photo's in the evening.  Tonight I went out with my dancing friends to a Brazilian Restaurant that my teachers perform at - it was great!  They performed the dance we have been learning and it was nice to go out on the coast for once.  I didn't get many good photos as I forgot to change the camera to auto focus to start with and then I was sitting in a bad spot to take photos - but i like this one. 

Day 77 - Sun 16th Oct

Today I headed down to Manly to go to the mudgee food and wine fair with my sister - it was a glorious spring day, the sun was shinging and I was looking forward to hopefully buying some yummy wine!  I got some brilliant photo's today.  Joel was in a mischevious mood and he is growing up so quick and turning into a little boy.  I'm not posting my fav photo of the day as that is just for our family - but I do like this one.  We were sitting under the trees having lunch, chilling out and laughing alot at Joel feeding himself and trying to chase the big kids.  I like the connection between mum and son in this photo and how relaxed Ames is.

Week 10!!

Wow - it's been 10 weeks since I started this crazy project and whilst I love doing this - it really is a crazy project!!!  But I am still succeeding in taking a daily photo which is brilliant!.  Sometimes it is really hard though and often I get home and start stressing about the fact that I haven't taken a photo yet for the day and have to create something - but at least i'm still going.

Monday 10th Oct - Day 71 - Sequins

Today was a bit disappointing - I took some self portraits at dance but they just didn't work out the way I wanted - we had a dress rehearsal in our feathers and we didn't have much time so taking the photo was all a bit rushed and I cut one of the girls heads out!  So I then had to get creative when I got home (at 9.00pm) - my next subject for the Photo 5 comp is Sequins in Low Light so I thought I would start experimenting tonight - I have decided I am going to make a sequin glitter ball and hopefully light it with glow sticks - that's the plan.   I have started sticking the sequins onto a paper lantern - but I thought I would test out how dark it has to be to take the style of photo I want, the sequin ball photos aren't quite up to scratch yet so I took some others instead.  This is just a bunch of sequins lit by the TV - pretty cool hey - will be interesting to see if my actual concept works or if I just end up using this photo for the comp.

 

Tuesday 11 Oct - Day 72 - Texture

I worked on the coast today so finished early which was great - I decided to head down to a different part of Brisbane Waters to go for a walk along the water and went seeking out this boat storage area.  There is a park that has about about 20-30 tinnies stored up against these posts and this was my favourite boat.  I like the texture in this photo and how it shows the wear and tear and love of this boat.

Wednesday 12th Oct - Day 73 - Sydney

We had a conference in the city today which was a nice change, after the conference finished one of the girls needed to do some shopping so we headed up to Pitt St Mall.  This was taken looking directly up - I love the angles of it - pity it was a cloudy/ raining day - but I love all the different types of buildings in this photo. 

Thursday 13th Oct - Day 74 - Sunrise

The sunrise was spectacular this morning and as I wasn't running too late for my train - I ducked down to ny local park and took this on my way to the station.  It's the only photo I took today as I got busy and forgot the rest of the day - so it will have to do. 


Hope you've all had a lovely week
Donna

Sequins, Feathers & Bubbles

Day 68 - Friday 6th Oct - FEATHERS!!!!

Had an ADO today which was brilliant, I was supposed to be going to Canberra to visit a friend, but unfortunately I just couldn't afford it but I decided to take the day off anyway to get a few jobs done.  I spent the entire morning mowing my lawn - I haven't done it for about 3 months now and it was getting a bit feral.  The reason why I have been so slack is my petrol lawn mower broke and I got given an electric one but it has been raining most weekends that I've been home this winter - so I got out there today and it took forever but it is done except for a tiny patch that I couldn't reach even though I was using 3 extension cords and two power boards!!!


Anyway - back to my photo of the day - luckily I was home today because I got some deliveries from the courier that I have been waiting on - if you refer back to one of my earlier posts, I talked about a feather costume that I have to wear for dance - well it arrived today and it fits - hoorah!  I'm still not 100% comfortable in my body to wear it in public, but I'm getting there and think I'm going to have to just suck it up and go with it.  


Except for my little blow out on Wed I've been eating really well and dancing 4-5 times a week along with trying to do additional crunches etc at home, so hopefully I can keep this up for the next few weeks and lose some weight around my stomach which is the only part I'm really worried about.  Maybe if I stopped drinking wine it would help!!!!!


I have to say - once I tried it on I did feel like a bit of a goddess and I love love love the colour, however it does highlight how bloody short waisted I am which made me giggle and you feel pretty damn naked in it also!


So I have included a few photo's today - one of me wearing the costume and then the arty farty shot that I had fun taking - the feathers and the sequins are so beautiful so it was fun to play around taking the arty shots. 


Day 69 - Saturday 7th Oct 11


Yesterday I picked up a package called a Canon Photo 5 box - it is a huge competition that is run every year and I won an entry into it.  Basically they give you 5 briefs and props to photograph and then submit into the competition. I spent a fair bit of time last night looking through all the entries into the competition so far and I gotta say - I'm an average photographer.  Yes I get some good shots every now and then but I really don't understand my camera well enough and all it's setting's - so this competition is going to be good for me and this project of mine.

Photo of the day

 The first brief is due in next week so I decided to spend the whole morning taking photo's.  The brief was "Foam" using a Macro lens - basically they gave us a small sachet of really strong dishwashing liquid and you had to shoot the "foam" close up.  I have never shot macro before, but I knew my large (70-300) lens had a macro setting on it.  So as the sun was shining I thought I would use the light outside.  I gathered all my prop's together, A Vintage Glass and mirror, lots of soap sud's, A giant bubble wand, my tripod, camera and some food die and here are some of the results. 

Actual Competition Entry

They are pretty cool - I like how the green leaf canopy is reflected in the mirror and contrasts against the blue glass and blue bubbles - I took heaps and heaps of shots and my back is killing me because I had my tripod up on the table and had to keep going back and forth between the glass and the camera as I don't have a remote control thingy.  


Gotta say - it was so much fun experimenting with this and I am happy with some of the shots - I don't think they are winning shots but they are good for a beginner.  The other briefs I have to do now are Sequins in low light, Powder with a fast shutter speed, Ribbon's panning and through a Pet's eyes.  I have ideas for the sequins and ribbons but totally stuck for the powder except for the obvious which everyone is doing and that is blowing up a balloon - hopefully something will come to me soon.


Enjoy - Donna