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.

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.

Long Weekend

Friday 30th Sept 11 - Dancing Friends/Shadow
I only took two photo's today - not really sure why, musn't have had my head in the right space, which leaves me with not much choice for my photo of the day.  I suppose at least I remembered to take two.  The photo I chose is of my dancing friends, I went out to dinner with them and tried out my new "photobooth" app on my phone.  I have two photo's today because when I went to post this one of my dancing friends on Facebook, it wouldn't upload - so I posted my other photo of the day shadows.

Sat 1st Oct 11 - Orchid
Had a super quiet day today as I'm totally broke at the moment, so I took a few photo's around the house.  Much to the teasing of my friends about the number of flower photo's I"m going to dedicate today to another flower shot. 

Why? When I took other photo's - well Miss Bronte =)

A:  It's a damn good photo
B:  I figure that these flowers are going to die off soon so I may as well capture them while I can, 


C:  I'm really surprised that this orchid is still alive! - see I seem to have some sort of virus running through my plants which is a bit sad.  


All the plants in my backyard have spots on the leaves and as I know absolutely nothing about gardening I'm not quite sure what is wrong with them - however some of them like this rock orchid that I inherited with my house are still successfully flowering and it is beautiful - so here it is - my flower of the week. 









Sunday 2nd Oct 11 - Grand Final Day!!Today is dedicated to the Mighty Manly Warringah Sea Eagles - 2011 Premiers of the Rugby League (NRL). 

Had a brilliant day today - I got to sleep in, caught up with lot's of my beautiful friends - drank far far too much wine - and my team won the footy! 

I have decided to make a Manly collage for today and I thank all my friends for posing specifically for my photo project - as you can see they are not a shy bunch!! 

We watched the game at a friends house and they had it projected up on the wall which was kinda cool so I took lot's of photo's of the projection - some worked, some didn't but I still thought I would include them in my Manly dedication! All the other photo's I took were drunken self portraits or were actually taken in the wee hours of Monday Morning, the best I'll post on my FB page - but many will be deleted!!!




Monday 3rd Oct 11 - Art Deco

Today was a public holiday - thank goodness as my crazy night didn't end til 5.00am this morning when I finally caught a taxi back to Mum and Dad's for a few hours of much needed sleep (and sobering up!).  Once I was finally feeling slightly human again, I went to meet my sister and nephew for lunch.  It was such a beautiful day - the sun was shining and we just chilled out down at Collaroy Beach. 

Joel is growing up so quick and it was brilliant to spend a few quality hours of cuddle and play time with him. The rest of the day was a write off with sleeping and dancing. 

Today's shot is of the old Cinema down at Collaroy - I love Art Deco architecture and I like the angles of this photo with the street lamp.  I also took some cute ones of Joel eating dirt and trying to play with the camera but they aren't for public consumption.

 

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

Day 20 - Costume Nightmare

This is a bit of a delayed post as I am writing this on Monday - but for those that know me well you may find this little story amusing!

As mentioned on Sat I was pretty hungover from my Friday Night Birthday shenanigans and spent the morning sleeping and doing nothing.  In the afternoon I was off on an excursion with my dancing girls.  We have a show coming up soon and we were off to Oxford St to buy costumes.  The shop we were buying from was like a mini heaven to me, feathers, sequins, disco balls, pretty, pretty, pretty.  Finding a costume to fit my fat arse was a different story!!  For those that don't know, the dancing that I do is Brazilian Samba - you know the girls in the g-strings and feathers!!! Yep that's what they want me to wear - ARRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!!!! 

All the girls were trying on these teeny tiny costumes that were stunning and I was secretly freaking out while trying to play cool at the same time, It's not that all the girls are super stick thin girls, they all just have flat stomachs and smaller boobs.  After picking through the g-strings and so called bra's, I eventually found a couple of dresses that I quite liked and one of them fit me YAY - only problem, it was backless and let me tell you now - I ain't dancing without a bra on, but it was so pretty, a whole front of sequins and then a feathered skirt and it could be made in pink and everything, however long story short - Nat (my gorgeous russian dance teacher) decided that she wants us all in the same costume - hence my photo of the day. 

I am expected to wear this in October this year - insert a trillion expletives, I think it is gorgeous but just not on someone like me, and because my bloody boobs are so big, I have to get a top custom made to fit by bringing in my own bra.  I have no idea how I am expected to find the confidence to wear something this skimpy between now and October, for goodness sake, I don't even wear a bikini in summer - I wear boardies.  As much as I would like to lose a bit of weight I don't have the motiviation to go on such a mega diet that would be required for me to feel confident in this - so I'm not really sure what I'm going to do - beside just being healthier overall (which I'm trying to do) and hoping that I lose some weight, In my head -I have 3 other options

1. Not eat for the next month (never going to happen LOL)
2. Buy a flesh coloured body suit - but then I think it will look weird as all the other girls are getting fake tans and I think it would accentuate my weight/ uncomfortableness even more
3. Suck it up and hope for the best.

My other stress about this costume nightmare is it costs $150 - something I just don't have to spend on a costume!  So watch this space and I'll keep you updated with the next instalment of my costume nightmare!

The rest of my day was fabo, I had a drink with one of the dancing girls on our way home - then went to an engagement party where I had a great time and actually had one of the best ab workouts I've had in ages laughing at my friends Tara and Matt!  I also had a good chat tonight with my friend Emma who was the one who got me started on this project - it's nice to be able to share this journey with someone else is is struggling with similar things (time, motivation, making it interesting).  Emma is actually shooting with mostly manual functions on her camera - I'm still working out how to use these functions but hopefully over the next few months I too can go fully manual.  Emma also has a blog - http://emmaandtheirwins.blogspot.com/ - if you want to see another 365 project in the making!
cheers Donna