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Day 65 - Tuesday 4th Oct 11 - Footprints

The beginning of October means that daylight savings starts in the Eastern states of Australia.  HOOOOOOORRRRRRRAAAAAAYYYYY - this means I get at least an hour of daylight when I get home - makes such a difference to my general state of mind. 

Today I went to the beach for a walk after work which was just brilliant - it was another glorious sunset and whilst it was a bit cool, it was still nice to have my feet in the sand and listen to the waves.  I love this photo of all the footprints on the beach - just shows that everyone is out and about and enjoying the longer days and small amounts of sunshine we have been getting.  I got hacked on the other day for the number of flower photo's I've taken so far but wait til the end of summer, I reckon I'll have just as many beach photo's as I intend on spending a fair bit of time heading to the beach over the next few months!

Day 66 - Wednesday 5th Oct 11 - Cake
I have been really good and eating super healthy for a few weeks now - but we had a new girl start at work this week and she baked for us now this was not just any cake but the most divine chocolate cake ever!!!  

So I blew the diet today and ate this delicious slice of cake.  I thought it would make a good photo with my coffee mug - It's not too bad but you can't really see the detail in the cake, I should have played with my AV more - but I was super keen to eat it!!! 
Anyway back to the no chocolate thing after today as that cake sat in my stomach like a brick all day!!


Day 67 - Thursday 6th Oct 11 - Spaghetti 
Tina picked me up after work today which was nice and as she rang me early I knew we would go out and I would hopefully get a good photo of the kids - which we did.  Now I have to share a little story about my family and the relation to this photo.  

Every year for as long as I can remember, as soon as the family sits down to eat Xmas lunch - one of my aunties is guaranteed to grab the camera and start taking photo's. For year's and year's we have hacked on her about this as she seems to time it perfectly every year and it is now a running family joke if she doesn't.  

Anyway - for some reason, I seem to have this fascination of taking photo's of kid's eating food which I think is quite ironic considering how much of a hard time I give to Aunty Kerry.  I don't know why but I love how messy kid's are when they eat and how much they enjoy their food.  


So today's photo is of Miss Jemima Ann eating Spag Bol - it was taking with my snap happy so the lighting isn't that great and of course I just missed the best shot of her smiling with the spaghetti hanging out of her mouth - wasn't quite trigger happy enough for that one.  

I know it is not the most flattering photo ever but I think it is brilliant - especially considering it was taken with my point and shoot!

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 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