Quizzical

Meet Meeka, the little dog I have been fostering. She is a(n approximately) 2 year old Mini Foxie x Jack Russell, with a lovely nature. She is incredibly smart and has the heart of a Rottweiler, determined to protect 'her' people.

At the moment she's having some specialist training to help her adjust from a previous home where she wasn't cared for (and hence saw herself as top dog, responsible for the family's welfare), but this little girl is still looking for her forever home. (If by any chance someone in Australia reading this has a place in their family for miss Meeka, please let me know so I can tell the rescue!)

Meeka's rescue is based in Queensland, but her specialist traniing is in NSW, and it may be possible to transport to other areas of Australia for the right forever home for this precious little girl.

Miss Meeka:

I sat on the verandah with Meeka, drying her off after her bath, to get this shot. I got a few nice ones that day (9 Feb, 2013), but this was my favourite, with her little quizzical expression.

Camera settings are below -
Shutter Speed: 1/318 second
Aperture: F/4.0
Focal Length: 11 mm
ISO Speed: 400

Curiosity

I bet you thought I forgot about FAA again, didn't you? I didn't, I was just waiting for the right day to come along and it's here! Welcome to Photo Friday!

It was just too much to come up with photos I liked enough to post *every* day of the week, so instead I've decided to compromise it to once a week. That seems more doable. :)



I can see this one taking on a cat and winning, can't you?:

My partner and I took some bread to the park to feed the ducks, and we were joined by a crow and several magpies. Though the crow was quite tame, the magpies were even more so - deigning to take a morsel of bread right out of my partner's hand!

To be honest, since we shared the camera, I can't tell you whether this photo was taken by my partner or not. Despite the small amount of blur to his head, I really want to claim it, but I can't definitively do so in good conscience. It may be my work or it might be Bumface's! ;)

Right There

I've been thinking about how I was going to write these posts every morning, and it's just not working so well. I keep having things to do in the mornings, or places to be, and things are generally too crazy to get this posted up at the same time so I think I'm going to make it that I write these up the night before and schedule them to post in the mornings, like I mostly have been doing. It seems to be working so far, anyway!

Soldier statue pointing at memorial:

Brisbane's ANZAC Square is filled with statues devoted to the Australian & New Zealand Army Corps. Sometimes, if you move around to view them from a different angle, it really changes things a lot.

A friend and I used to meet up in ANZAC Square occasionally, and I took this on one of those days, as I waited for her to arrive. I love that moving just a few feet around from where one sits to view this statue makes it look as though he is pointing to the monument above (with the always burning flame in rememberance).

I adjusted the focal length and the exposure time on this, zoomed in a fair bit, then crouched with my camera balanced upon the edge of a seat-back in order to capture this.

Budding

Phew, I've been on the go all day today! I did manage to get a few things accomplished though: several loads of washing done and already put away properly, gym and a walk (despite managing to somehow crunch my hip and put it out a bit at the gym), banana bread baked and the bathroom cupboard totally cleaned out and sorted! (This last one took several *hours* of work.)

Budding pink flowers on a clear day:

Now that's what I call a clear day - not a single cloud in sight. I don't remember much about the taking of this particular photograph - not even what day it was taken or where, unfortunately. I do know that I had to use my camera's zoom rather than the macro setting, and that I played around with the focal length a fair bit.

I like the way the colours pop on this one; the blue of the sky manages to accentuate the pink and the green.

A Hand To Hold

Quick write-up for Thursday's picture, done on Wednesday (this is starting to become the norm!) as I'm out early again on Thursday. So ready to have a quiet day at home, wish I could!

Evie and Kendall holding hands:

Rhi and I took an outing one day to the Botanic Gardens at Mt Cootha with Evie and Kendall. I managed to get several shots of Kendall in various outfits, and a couple of the two bears together.

After posing the bears how I wanted them, I used my macro setting and zoom lens to snap just the bears hands 'held' together.

Lights: Ferris Wheel

Welcome to another Monday! It's early morning and the birds have beaten me up again - Summer is definitely on its way over here, despite the chill still in the air overnight.

Ekka Ferris Wheel at night:

I love Brisbane's Exhibition - from the quiet arts competition entries to the busy-ness and bustle of the Sideshow Pavillion, and all the things in between, and I love that there are so many opportunities for photographs of all kinds. As evening turned into full dark on my '09 visit, I stole down into Sideshow Alley and found myself a quiet spot to photograph the beautifully lit up rides and attractions.

This Ferris Wheel shot was taken on the 'night' setting, quite zoomed in, while I braced myself and my camera against a pole. I love the way the night sky makes the colours really 'pop'.

"Lights: Ferris Wheel" is part of my Ekka series.

Eastern Water Dragon

I cheated and wrote this one up on Wednesday night, thinking I was going to be out and about early on Thursday. I figured it would be better to write it early and schedule it for a 7am posting than to write it late... but as it turned out, it was unnecessary!

Anyway, my Thursday intends to involve a trip to the gym, a Lush bath, and possibly a pumpkin scone, how about yours?


Leapin' lizards, it's an Eastern Water Dragon!:

I was wandering through Southbank one day when I spotted this little poser sunning himself on the wall beneath the pink flowers. Not sure where mum and dad were, but he was quite small.

There's something about skinks and lizards that just calls to me. They're generally fairly harmless and they always seem so friendly and *smart*. I mean, look at him there, watching me! What a sweety.

I snapped this using my lovely Kodak; not sure on most of the settings as I played around with a few that day. I'm fairly certain I used the Macro option, and crept as close as I could without scaring him away. Happily he was not very timid and allowed me to get quite close indeed, as you can see!

Little Storm

I'm so glad I don't work, just now; I feel like there aren't enough hours in the day to do all the things I need to do as it is! If I had to add a job to the mix, I think I'd fall over.

Is anyone watching yet?:

I snapped this one of my niece, J, while she was in the middle of a tantrum. I got a few shots of her, but I love the timing on this one best: she's just peeking out to check if anyone's paying attention to her little strop! No idea what the crying was even about, but this moment is now forever immortalised. One for her 21st birthday, I think... ;)

I had to crouch down to her level to grab it, but unfortunately I was in too much of a hurry to take note of what settings I was using.

No Leeway

So far this morning the sun is out and shining. I hope this continues as I want to wash my bedding today, and while it dries on the line I'm planning to make healthy breakfast muffins and pumpkin scones. Mmmm.

Pink flowers (Chrysanthemums?) butting up against a garden wall:

Out on a walk one afternoon I spotted these flowers in someboddy's garden. To me it looks almost like they're headbutting the wall, struggling to make progress in their world; held back by a force greater than themselves. There's a kind of sad beauty in that -- but the most wonderful part comes from the fact that even while confined, these flowers are flourishing. They're taking what they've got and working with it instead of fighting against it... and that, my friends, is truly beautiful.

I haven't a clue what settings my camera were on when I took this photograph, except that I'm fairly certain "macro" was involved somewhere. (Isn't it nearly always with me?) Too, this is another one of those photographs where I got down to the subject's level - so crouched outside somebody's front yard, camera balanced just above the edge of their brick fence.

Fragile Beauty

Today is Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day, a day that has a lot of meaning for me. Today and always I honour the children in our hearts and never (or too briefly in) our arms.

What better symbol to represent our lost babies than the fragile beauty of a butterfly who stands also for rebirth and transformation? In the spirit of that, and acknowledgement of the transience of life, today's image is a butterfly I photographed while in the UK.

A butterfly rests upon her lunch:

I caught this image while at the British Natural History museum, at the butterfly exhibit they had running at the time. I managed to get a couple of nice photos that day, despite the notorious difficulty of capturing these fluttering beauties, this is one of my favourites.

To get this, I set my camera to Manual but with Macro set to on, then adjusted the aperture and shutter speed settings. I believe this one was taken at an ISO of 100, but I fiddled with the aperture and shutter speed so much on the different butterfly photos I was trying to take that I've not a clue what I settled on with this particular shot.

Best Of Friends

Good morning world. The sun is shining, the clouds of yesterday have wandered off and I don't have time to do my washing as I have a morning appointment every Friday! Oh well, such is life, hopefully tomorrow will be clear instead of stormy.

Kendall shows Evie the sights:

A friend and I both got Build-a-Bears at the same time, Kendall's mine and Evie is hers. I wanted to get these two kneeling and looking somewhere interesting, but they wouldn't have stayed up so I got the next best thing - kneeling together and cuddling on a park bench.

This photograph was taken using generic settings, no flash and some amount of zoom, and is part of the Teddies series.

Jurassic Memories

Goodness, has it really been almost a year since I last posted here? Hard to believe, but apparently true! Anyway, I'd like to give this a shot at actually going back to updating this daily again. I'm going to try doing the post between 7 & 9 each day as I think having a concrete time will make it easier to incorporate it into my daily routine.
Anyhow, already running behind, so onto today's!

Mossy rocks at Lyme Regis:

Set in Dorset, England, along what is known as the Jurassic Coast, Lyme Regis is famous for its fossil hunting. I can't think of a more appropriate photograph for a 'come back', with its physical link to the past. Plus, the mossy rocks are just how I imagine (probably incorrectly, it's true) most rocks from that era to have looked.

No fancy tricks were involved in taking this shot, I just sorted my camera settings out, stood, aimed and clicked. Well, alright, I may have crouched slightly. I'm not positive, but I think the camera was set on its automatic setting with a slight zoom. No tripod as I was there to fossil-hunt more than photo shoot!

Rain rain, if you're going to stick around, make it good! The local roads are beginning to be affected by the flooding, the water in my swan pond is now up as high as the gazebo, and my front yard resembled a swimming pool. Maybe tomorrow I'll be able to have a small play in the mud; if the waters continue to rise the creek near me may flood over the road.

Tiny little blossoms:

While at Alma Park Zoo one day with my family, I managed to snap this shot using mum's friend's Canon PowerShot S3 IS; pretty sure I used the super macro to get this one.

Season's Greetings

Happy new year!

Again, apologies for the unintended hiatus. Let's hope I can do better this year!

Jelly spill in Christmas colours:

Almost everybody that celebrates it has a favourite Christmas tradition or two; one of mine is that every year either my mother, or I, or both of us together, make trifle. We usually use both red and green jelly, and this year was no exception - although this year our trifle was a bit smaller than usual, which turned out quite lucky as we spilled about half of our green jelly! Apparently it's bad form to lick it off the drainage board, though... so don't worry, I used a spoon! ;)

Lorikeet In Watercolour

Sorry for the missing post yesterday, my mum went in for an angiogram and things were a little crazy. She's out and doing well now, but not allowed to do anything strenuous for about 48 hours.

Watercolour Lorikeet outside McDonalds:

Completely unedited, I took this one on a cloudy day. I remember I was angling the camera up and trying not to stand in gardens or get too close and frighten the lorikeets away, so I couldn't really see what I was doing/getting, but all of my shots came out over exposed like this, looking almost like a watercolour painting rather than a photograph.

Pink Flower

Went to the oral surgeon today and got my two remaining wisdom teeth removed. One was fairly quick and simple, like the first removal, the other was rather nasty - he even had to use the drill! That's probably because that little jerk was coming in almost directly sideways, but still. Oh well, it's over and done with now, so here's some pretty!

Pretty pink flower reaching up to the sun:

I do believe I found this pretty pink flower on a walk with my camera one day. It's shot, of course, on macro, but as usual, no clue on any of the other settings I might have used.

I've no idea what kind of flower this is, but if you know, feel free to give me a shout and let me know!

Snow Slide

Damn, missed yesterday's post, sorry. I got distracted with some craft-work.

Maxie enjoyed the snow in Canberra as well:

Until this year, when I took a trip down to Canberra and visited Selwyn Snowfields, I had never in my life seen snow. While I was there I got to experience sledding, making a snow angel and I saw my first snowman; but I was so busy doing these things that most of my snow pictures are taken out the car windows. I did, however, get a couple of pictures of Maxie enjoying herself on the embankment afterwards.

I zoomed the camera in and got down nice and low to grab this particular shot.

Little Flowers

White flowers overhanging a little waterfall at DreamWorld:

These were taken with my macro lens on zoom, from an elevated walkway above a tiny creek-waterfall. I know the name is rather lacking, but I was running out of time to post it before it was tomorrow! ;) Any suggestions are welcome and encouraged!

Fresh

Another quick one as I've spent my morning tidying up ready to make Christmas cards with my nieces and nephew, and they're on their way now.

A pink rose in bloom:

As usual, I snagged this using general settings on macro, but this time I used a family friend's Canon Powershot. I am pretty sure I took this in our front yard, just experimenting with the camera's capabilities.

Treasure From Trash

Instead of doing this post, or cleaning my room, or writing my novel, I've spent my morning revisiting old poetry favourites. Falling in love all over again with poets like Nikki Giovanni and Marty McConnell, whose words dig down and rip my insides open; that has been my morning.

An abandoned bicycle lends its pedal to a bit of macro-photography:

On a puddle-jumping expedition on a rainy day, my friend and I spotted an abandoned bicycle hanging off a pole. Something about it just called to me, so I snapped a couple of shots of various aspects of the bicycle. This one was taken using general settings and the macro function, and it's a part of my 'Edges' series.