Birthday Celebrations - Sasha & Tepaea

Day 111 – Sat 19^th Nov – Alfie Dog

Wow hard choice today – it seems I either take one or two photos or I take hundreds!!!  Today was a bit epic – I spent the morning in the garden (which I’m slowly getting on top of!!!) then went to a mini festival thing with the BFF and her kids before heading up to antoher good friends house for a BBQ.  The afternoon was spent in the pool drinking beers and chilling out.  It was such a lovely evening and I took heaps of photos – many of which are blurred (possibly due to the number of wines consumed…and the fact I’m trying to shoot manual focus more often than not these days).  Most of the photo’s of the kids I don’t really want to post as they are half naked and I'm so far behind in posting this. I chose alfie dog as my main subject for the day as I just love this photo – he is such a cute puppy and I just like the angle of this photo. 

Day 112 – Sun 20^th Nov – Cousins

Drove down to Sydney today to hang with my cousin’s.  It was the lovely cheeky Miss Tepaea’s 3^rd Birthday during the week so I had promised her a day of playtime – we ate ice cream, swam in the pool and played games all afternoon and it was just lovely.  Miss Tepaea loves pulling faces for the camera and posing for me which is great – this is 3 of my gorgeous cousines posing while they are enjoying ice cream. 

I'm Back!!

So it's been about 3-4 months now since my last blog update, I guess I'm not as efficient at time management as I would like to be, but I do miss writing about my daily adventures so thought I should get back into it.  I actually have 4 written blogs that I haven't posted yet so today is the day!

The whole point of starting this blog was as a record for my Photo a day project and when I took holiday's over Summer I just didn't want to go near a computer every day hence the lack of updates.  I am going to endeavour to go back though and write a mini blurb about the past few month's worth of photo's because despite not writing about it, I am actually still going strong and haven't missed a day yet.

As I've said before it is tough trying to find something interesting to photograph every single day but I am really enjoying the challenge and have to say that it does occupy quite a bit of brain space each day. To help me out this month I have decided to join in a "photo a day" challenge set by another much better blogger "fat mum slim".  From what I can gather she started the photo a day challenge in Jan and assigns a word per day per month to photograph - so it will be interesting to actually keep to a schedule for the month and not just shoot whatever takes my fancy - I'm hoping it will hit a few creative buttons in my brain and make me think a bit more outside the square when taking photo's.

On the camera front, I have finally learnt how to use some more of the settings on Dad's DSLR camera, it's only taken me how long and I've read the manual many times over the past 8 months also.  So I can now set the white balance and RGB colours, can take black and white photos and do some fancy effects.  I still totally suck at apertures (unless I'm using the macro lens) and long/ short exposures so that is my next challenge I guess to get on top of these.  I've been using my macro len's a lot more lately and loving the results and I'm also using my phone camera a lot more - it's just kinda fun to use all the fancy app's.  I mostly use a program called Camera 360 and it gives me some fun colour and retro effect options for my photos. 

So that is the status of my 365 project as of March.  Hopefully I can catch up quickly on the past few months worth of photo's - my biggest issue will be running out of internet access over the next month as I have a very limited amount of access.

Ciao Donna

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.