Days 57 - 60 From Best to Worst

Day 57 - Monday 26th Sept 11 - New Bag

Aahh Monday's I hate thee so much!!!!  But my photo for today is exciting, this is my new camera/ handbag - isn't it awesome, it arrived in the post last week, I bought it from a company called Jo Totes and this was my birthday present from Mum and Dad. 

I absolutely love it, the bag came with special inserts that protect your camera and it is huge, I can fit both my camera's and my extra lens, along with my wallet and crap etc. Do you like my styling, thought it looked better with the mag!!

Day 58 - Tuesday 27th Sept 11 - Sunset

Today I was hoping to use my new bokeh kit but I don't think it is going to work very well with my lens which is disappointing - even though when I bought it I thought it was compatible, I'm not so sure now. I am yet to give it a really good try but so far I am having problems getting the pretty sparkles it is supposed to produce.  I stopped off at the water on the way home hoping to catch some sparkles as the sun was setting but as it didn't work I just took some more sunset photo's instead and How spectacular is this!!!!! I am sooooo happy with this photo, the colour, the frozen clouds, the pelican in the shade - love it, love it, love it, actually this is my favourite photo so far in this project.

Day 59 - Wednesday 28th Sept 11 - Winner

So excited today, recently I won first prize in a competition that I didn't even remember entering.  The prize was $1000 worth of designer cashmere clothing from an Australian company called Gasperre and the parcel arrived today. 

So I won a black cardigan - not really my style but will be nice on a cool night in summer, a beautiful baby blue throw and a sloppy jumper - the company have been so lovely and I had my choice of colours etc - so if you ever want to splurge (and I mean splurge!!) Then I would recommend this company. 

Winner!!!

Day 60 - Thurs 29th Sept 11 - Bokeh

So I go from my best photo so far to my worst photo so far - all in two days.  I bought this Bokeh Kit from the USA and it is supposed to make pretty light effects except I just can't get it to work.  Not sure if it is my lens or just my blondeness - but this was me experimenting last night.  I am hoping for a bit of sunshine this weekend so I can get down to the water and play a bit more.  This photo was taken in my lounge room and it is supposed to be a heart shape - I don't mind the softness of it but overall pretty disappointed. It's actually getting harder and harder to find things to photograph at the moment - I'm almost all done on flowers and lunch time walks - hopefully with daylight saving starting this week I can try and get out for a few drives in the spare 15 min's I have between getting home and going to dance during the week.  This means's being super organised and actually taking my dance clothes with me before work each day and ensuring I have done all my food shopping on the weekend.  On a side note - it is the start of a long weekend and hopefully it'll be a good one - heading out on the town with my dancing girls Friday night and GRAND FINAL day on Sunday where Manly is going to whip the Warriors Arse!!! 

Let's hope I get some good photography in as well. 

Cheers Donna

Days 54 - 56

Days 54- 56 Weekend

 

Hooray for weekends, but man they just seem to disappear far too quickly.

Day 54 - Friday 23rd Sept 11 - Kye

Today's photo is of my good friend Mandy's son Kye.  Mandy is pretty much my oldest friend, we have known each other since Kindy and I think it is pretty cool to still be friends with someone nearly 30 years later.  Mandy had asked me to babysit her two kids so she could have a night out in the city and knowing how lovely her kids how could I refuse.  Her youngest Zoe went to bed no problems at 7.30 and then Kye and I sat up watching the footy (Manly won - whooo hooo bring on the grand final now!!).  I took a few photos of the kids, but I have messed with one of the settings on the camera and everything is coming out blurry (even when I manual focus) - so I had to reset the whole thing on Sunday.  I think this is a lovely photo of Kye, even though he has a bit of a black eye after a basketball injury that day. I am working on my portrait photography and I think the lighting could of been better, hopefully my new flash will help fix that.

Day 55 - Saturday 24th Sept 11 - Lia

Today started with breakfast with my lovely friend Bec and her daughter Lia - we have been trying to catch up for weeks now and finally secured a time and date - I absolutely love this photo - Lia is nearly 1 and she is going through that "look at me I'm so cute phase" - she just looks so happy in this photo. The rest of my day was spent dancing and cleaning - we had rehearsals for a performance this evening and then I did a ballet fit class - awesome but really hard and so sore as I write this on monday.  Tonight we had a Girls Night at the studio where I do my dancing, Tina and her sister Amanda (who has just returned from a long stint in the UK) came down to see me perform my Brazilian Samba routine - it was so much fun, it's been awhile since I performed and of course I loved it - am now looking forward to doing a few more performances. 

Day 56 - Sunday 25th Sept 11 - Shells

It is raining big time here today and the house is a disaster as Tina's kids came to stay and as much as I love them to bits, hey certainly know how to make a mess - all of us where a bit lethargic (maybe a bit hungover =)) this morning so we just lazed around playing with the kids and watching friends - once Tina went home I had a major cleaning mission.  I don't know what inspired this shot - I just was walking around the house looking for something easy to shoot and this was my best photo of the day - I think it's pretty - the colours worked out really well considering what a miserable day it was - must be my awesome photography skills LOL!!

Donna xoxo

Days 50-53

Monday 19 Sept - Day 50

Today I have my standard flower of the week photo - yep it's becoming a bit of a theme - but that's ok cause I love flowers, it's spring and they are easy to photograph - I am trying to make them interesting and take different ones though.  This was taken on my lunchtime walk.








Tuesday 20th Sept - Day 51

I thought I would be a bit creative today so when I got home I took these lights off the wall and put them in a bowl.  I bought a vintage mirror on the weekend and I love the reflection in this photo.  The lights are from thailand - I'm a bit of a fan of fairy lights - I intend to buy a bunch for my back yard when I get some cash and have been meaning to shoot these lights for a while.  I tried a setting on the camera I haven't used before also so am pretty proud of myself today.

Wednesday 21st Sept 11 - Day 52 - Dance

Today I took some photo's at my dance studio, some of the Pole girls were doing a practice performance for a show this weekend and I thought it would be a good chance for me to practice taking some motion photos.  As I was taking the photo's I thought they were looking really good, I changed my speed and set the camera for low light, however when I went to edit them they were all a bit crap - they were really dark and too much motion - I managed to fix a few up and I quite like this one.  Today my new handbag came in the mail, it is a special camera bag from America and I am sooooo excited, photo's to come soon.

Thursday 22nd Sept 11 - Day 53 - Footloose

I got a free ticket to see the re-make of Footloose tonight and as a fan of the original I was thinking it was going to be crap - but it was actually quite good - very very funny - not bad dancing and a hot male lead - can't really complain.  I was trying to get a self portrait of me and the sign but it just didn't work so today's photo is the promo for the movie.

I got more goodies in the mail today, my Bokeh Kit and Flash adapter were sitting at my doorstep when I got home - soooo excited - just got to work out how to make the Bokeh photo's work now. (bokeh is a fancy light thingy - basically I put a shape over my len's and then I should get pretty butterfly's or stars when I photograph lights in the dark - fingers crossed).

Adios Amigo's - Donna xoxo

Days 48 - 49 - Weekend

Day 48 - Sat 17th Sept 11 - Sunset
So unlike my slack Friday, Saturday I took loads of photo's. I had brunch this morning with my lovely friend Robyn and her partner Max - they were going to a wedding up the coast so came to my house which was nice.  Shortie is one of my oldest friends and we don't see each other that often but when we do we always have lots to catch up on, she got engaged recently and I got to see her proposal video (yes there is one!!) and all her overseas photos which was great, we munched down on strawberries, eggs and salmon - mmmm such a treat. 

I then raced to the ferry to meet the family for lunch at Newport Arms, I love the arms - it was a bit of mission to get there - but nicer to catch a ferry than drive for two hours, it is only a 20 minute ferry ride from the coast to Palm Beach in Sydney but as it was a Saturday it took me 20 minutes to get to the ferry and then a half hour bus ride to the arms. 

It was a lovely afternoon just to chill out in the sun and have a few vino's and catch up with the fam, I haven't seen my beautiful nephew for a few weeks so it was nice to have a bit of playtime with him - he is nearly 12 months old and crawling around exploring everything - wish I got to see him more often though. 

I then got to watch the sunset as I returned back up the coast.  Whilst I took lots of people photo's today, I couldn't got past this sunset shot - I took about trillion photo's on the ferry ride home and I just love this, I also got some awesome ones of my Joelboy, but I need to check with my sis if it's ok to publish these or not. 

Day 49 - Sun 18th Sept 11 - Best Friend

I had lots of grand plans for getting jobs done around the house this morning before catching up with my bestie Tina you know boring stuff like mowing lawns, doing washing - however Energy Australia had other ideas and decided to replace the power poles outside my house which meant no power for the whole day - whilst I did receive notice I totally forgot about it so was totally pissed off when I couldn't enjoy my morning coffee - luckily I had leftovers from brunch and could rustle up an uncooked breaky.   So instead of spending the day at home, I headed off early to see Tina.  She had a kid free day today so we spent most of the afternoon relaxing in the pub drinking wine and talking shit hence my photo of the day. 

Tina and I have been best friends for nearly twenty years and seriously we can talk and talk and talk about pretty much nothing and everything for hours on end - shame we both had to drive today as I reckon we could have downed many many more drinks. 

I have included my second fav photo of the day today as I like the artyness of it, this was taken at a school fete that we went to, where they had a vintage car and caravan show - I love old cars and wish I had the money to keep one as a weekend car. One can dream.....

Here's to another mundane week at work
Donna xoxo

Friday - Slack

So it's Day 47, and it's a friday and I don't know why but I took hardly any photo's today (only 3 or 4 in the morning and this was the best). I guess it's been a bit of a full on week with the funeral and everything and I just ran out of energy, so unfortunately today is an average photo.  I took this at 6.00am at Mum and Dad's - it is the reflection in their pool - whilst the reflection is nice, the pool is disgusting - it has some sort of algae that they can't get rid of and you can see the gunk ruining my nice photo!!  I do like the sun just tinting the top of the trees though!

Happy Weekend everyone - hope it's a good one

Donna

Days 45-46

Day 45 - 14th Sept - Vintage Cards

Today's photo is of a prize I won, I read a stack of blogs and it is so easy to enter competitions, you just write a nice message and sometimes you get lucky.  These are vintage playing cards that came from the States - i think they are gorgeous - not really sure what I'm going to do with them yet though.  I did take some photos of them looking all neat and spread out - but I liked the messy stack better.  I have also won another prize recently a $1000 voucher for some cashmere clothing company - but I am waiting to hear back from them to find out what exactly I won - but $1000 is pretty cool - still have my fingers crossed that I will win the $25,0000 home renovation package - that would just be a dream.

Day 46 - 15th Sept - Disco

Today was a bit shit, I attended a funeral for my Boss's husband who died a long fought battle with Cancer - RIP Martin.  So obviously I wasn't really in the mood to take photo's - all of my colleagues from work attended and it ended up being a nice afternoon.  I did take one photo during the day which was of the pub where the wake was held, but it was a bit shit!  I decided to stay at the parentals tonight as I was too emotionally tired to drive back up the coast.  I stayed in my old room which still has my disco ball hanging from the roof so I thought I would take some shot's of it.  They weren't that great - so I decided to play a bit in Picnic and touch the photo up - it looks pretty now.

Hope you all have a great weekend, won't be back til Monday

cheers Donna xoxo

Week 7

Monday 12th September

Back to full time work today - it was hard getting up at 5.30 this morning but I am finally well and looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. So today's photo is of yes more flowers, but Monday's are a bit of a crazy day for me as I go straight from work to dance and don't get home til 9.00pm so the only chance I really get to take photo's is at lunch.  I found this huge Azaela tree on my lunchtime walk and I like the way I framed this shot.

Tuesday 13th September

Working at Gosford today so sleep in -whoot - I ended up walking today as I didn't start til a bit later and getting parking is an absolute nightmare - and as the sun was shining and I need to lose about 10 kilo's in the next month I figured I should get my butt moving.  I kinda knew what I wanted to photograph today and hoped they would work.  Along the water front at Gosford is a row of beautiful palm trees so I spent quite awhile on my way home taking different shots of these trees, Palm Trees are hard to photograph and of course I was playing around with all the different settings that I am still trying to get my head around - I think I need them tattoed on my hand so that I remember!!  Anyway my fav photo is looking up at the blue sky with the leaves surrounding me, 
again I like the framing of this shot! 

Donna xoxo
Hope your all enjoying the sunshine also

Donna

Weekend

Saturday 10th September - Bestie


I woke up feeling better this morning and just did a few things around the house.  I was invited to a BBQ at a friends house today and I haven't seen them in ages so it was really nice to visit.  My beautiful bestie and her crazy kids came and picked me up and we spent the afternoon drinking coffee and wine, eating yummy food (mmm noodle salad!!) and hanging out with lovely friends.  This photo is of Tina - I love how relaxed she looks with the sun shining on her.  I have also posted my second fav photo of the day - this is Tina's daughter Jemima and she kept trying to run me over on the bike as I was taking photo's of her - you can see how cheeky and mischevious she is!


Sunday 11th September - Sunlight

Caught up with my Nan and my Mum today - I didnt' end up taking a photo of them though, probably should have but we were just having a nice relaxing lunch. Before lunch I went out into the yard and took some photo's of the sun streaming into my yard through another wind chime (yep I'm a fan).  I also took stacks of photo's of clouds today - will have to post on another day


ciao donna

September Sickness!!

So the beginning of Spring 2011 hasn't been too good to me, I spent the first week in bed with a chest infection and then as I thought I was getting better, I had a severe allergic reaction to something and my face swelled up like a puffer fish and consequently I spent a few more days in bed.  I'm not really sure what I'm allergic too, but it is something that I need to get investigated as it has happened previously, just not so severe, but that requires another trip to the GP which I'm kinda not really keen on at the moment.  Anywhoo onto Photography - despite all this crazy sickness I am still taking photo's so let's catch up on last week.  Again apologies for the lopsided photo's - no matter what I try, I can't get them to rotate.

Tuesday 6th September 2011

I didn't take many photo's today and only with my phone. I drove to work this morning and went for a walk down the water this afternoon where I snapped a few sunset shots, but really they were pretty crap.  This photo was taken out of my car window whilst I was stuck in traffic.  I LOVE Gum Trees, they are one of my favourite things to photograph and I put a LOMO effect on this one - I think the rainbow effect is pretty!

Wednesday 7th September 2011

I started reading my camera manual today and I discovered I have a few "preset" options that I can use so I thought I would start experimenting with these.  Today was the day my allergy totally flared up and I spent most of the day sleeping and almost forgot to take a photo.  I got out a few of my candles and took some photo's using the "candle" setting, and I'm pretty happy with this one, will have to do some more experimenting soon.

Thursday 8th September 2011

Again, I almost forgot to take a photo today, I went into work and spent the day in ED where I got prescribed some really good drugs that totally made me sleepy, so the afternoon was spent on the couch sleeping and watching movies & TV, I started watching the first series of Mad Men today - highly recommend it if your looking for a good show to watch.  Again I was experimenting with some of the settings on the camera.  This is a wind chime that I bought in Byron Bay this year - it sits out the front of my house and I was experimenting with motion - looks cool hey.

Friday 9th September 2011

Another day at home and today it was pouring with rain so I went outside and tried to capture some rain drops - this is OK, but Macro is definitely something I need to work on.

Happy weekend everyone - hope it's a good one

Donna xoxo

Days 36 - Spring

Day 36 - 5th Sept 11


Back to work today after a week of being sick - but got sent home at lunchtime as the girls thought I should still be in bed.  So on the way home I stopped off at a local park to get my photo of the day - this park is right on the water and has a war memorial at it and a really old cemetery - it is quite a beautiful place - I think it is called Pioneer Park - from what I can gather - East Gosford where I live is quite an old settlement and full of history - I  keep discovering cool new places to visit which is nice.  I'm really happy with this photo as I was playing with the manual settings and managed to get the background blurred and the red pop - I still don't know what I'm doing but playing with the camera is helping me get better shots.


I still have to edit the rest of the week's pictures so will have to catch up in a few day's time - it's funny but because i've been so sick, I have not wanted to go anywhere near a computer which has put me way behind in my editing.


Hopefully things will look up soon


Donna xoxo

Days 33 - 36 - Still catching up

Day 33 - 2nd Sept 11

I'm still off sick but feeling a bit better today - Spring has certainly arrived in Sydney and the sun was shining so I thought I would get out for a walk.  From my front verandah I have minimal water views so I thought I would head down to the water to see what it was like.  This photo is taken looking back towards my house and the water is called Erina Wetlands, there were lots of ducks around and it is really peaceful - lot's of people fish here as well.  I'm so pleased the weather has warmed up - can't wait for summer now!


Day 34 - 3rd Sept 11

My cousin and her family was visiting from Lismore today and the sun was shining again which was great.  I'm really lucky and quite close to my cousins - Jacki is 6 months older than me and Becca is 6 months younger and we were grew up together, now it's great to watch their kids growing up.  I took heaps of photos of the kids today but this was my favourite - this is Tama - he is 6 and my godson - usually he is pulling crazy faces so to get a nice photo of him is rare - isn't he beautiful!  The rest of the day was spent with Tina - we went and saw the movie The Help - it is brilliant - everyone should go see it - but take the tissues.




Day 35 - 4th Sept 11

It's fathers day today and it is glorious sunshine again - I met mum and dad for fish and chips at Brooklyn and sat by the river watching the world go by.  I took heaps of photos of the water and the pelican's but I had to dedicate today to my daddy!!  As we took this photo in true dad style - he ask's - "what the bloody hell are you doing - get your mother to take it"!!  Guess he's not a fan of self portraits - you would think he would be used to it by now with 3 kids that are obsessed with photography, after all he was the one who encouraged us all in the first place - Happy Fathers Day Peter Fatty Noddy Poppy Quirke - love you lots xoxo

Catch Up - 29th August - 2nd Sept - Days 29-32

Well it's been well over a week since I last blogged and I have hit the one month mark (yay).  Whilst I have been quiet on the computer I have still been taking my daily picture - I have just been holed up on the couch for a week with a really bad chest infection/ flu - so I'm pretty happy that I still managed to find the motivation to take the photo's cause let me tell you, there wasn't much motivation to do anything except lie like a sloth, cough and blow my nose - charming hey! 

Monday 29th August - Day 29 Lights

I tried to be arty with some of the lights that I have in my house but not many of my shots worked out at all - Once I get time to work out how to use my DSLR properly on Manual settings I hope to re-take this photo and see if it works out better - I like the moodiness of this photo but it is a bit grainy and I had to do a bit of editing to make it look ok.

Tuesday 30th August - Day 30

Again I tried to be arty and failed - this time using my point and shoot - I was playing around with the colour settings where you enhance 1 colour and everything else is B&W - but I just couldn't get a shot that was light enough - I guess if I was taking them during the day it would be different.  I chose this one as it was the best of the bunch - and I took heaps of different ones around the house. (Apologies for the lopsidedness - but I just can't get it to sit right!)

Wednesday 31st August - Day 31

Today the only thing I did besides slothing and watching Beverley Hills 90120 (thanks Erin) was go to the doctors - I knew I had to take a photo and whilst I have no green thumb, I have been pretty excited that I actually managed to grow a plant successfully so when I got home I used my phone to take a photo of one of my favourite flower's - this beautiful freesia - and yes I grew it all by myself - well actually last year I pick a whole lot of bulbs off the side of the road and shoved them in my garden hoping for the best and viola - 1 flower grew amongst the weeds - I have done the same this year - planted a whole lot of freesia bulbs so hopefully next spring I will have more than one.

Thursday 1st September - Day 32

Spring - Yay - but still sick!  It was gorgeous outside today and I did manage to leave the house which was good.  For a few weeks now I have been eyeing off a pair of shoes but they had run out of my size - today they rang to say that they had new stock in which was exciting and as I had run completely out of food - I trekked up to the shops and bought my new shoes!