Pawfection

So, since my last update, I've puppy-sat looking after a young staffy x bull arab -- beautiful, beautiful dog -- and now taken on a little foster dog. You can expect a photo of her next week, most likely!

Sleepy Paws-es:

These big feet belong to the staffy x bull arab pup mentioned above. He was a 'found' dog whose owners hadn't been in contact yet, so he came to stay overnight. I named him 'Captain Jack' (Harkness, of course) while I cared for him because he was such a sweetheart he's bound to be a heartbreaker, though his name actually turned out to be 'Charger'.

The photo itself I took by sprawling across the concrete on the verandah. (Do you get the feeling I do that a lot for a photo? I know I seem to write it a lot!)

Camera settings are below -
Shutter Speed: 1/79 second
Aperture: F/4.0
Focal Length: 4 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Sphynx

Sorry for the delayed updates, we've had some pretty crazy times lately. Horrible weather, flooding, car and washing machines needing repairs...!

Guardian kitty:

This beautiful boy belongs to my upstairs neighbour, and he loves to come visit our yard and roll around on the ground. He's friendly enough, though he doesn't like being picked up/carried, but definitely a grot! ;)

Camera settings are below -
Shutter Speed: 1/101 second
Aperture: F/4.0
Focal Length: 9 mm
ISO Speed: 200

Machinery #2: Ready To Pounce

Ha! Grand plans will always be foiled by circumstance, I think. Day one of my new idea and a storm hits while I'm in the middle of scrapbooking. My mother pulled the plug on the internet long before I was done enough to contemplate my post, and went to bed before I could ask her if I could put the internet back on. Oh well, there's always tonight! ;)

Old-fashioned farm machinery at Brisbane's Exhibition:

One of the sections of 2009's Ekka (what we call the Brisbane Exhibition) included some examples of old-fashioned farm machinery. I just loved the shapes and lines the machines created, especially when viewed from some of the more unorthodox angles. Unfortunately because it was the Ekka, I was laden down with a bit of stuff and couldn't quite try for all of the angles I'd normally use!

Another for the Edges, Angles and Lines series, I snapped this as-is, after mildly adjusting the usual settings (yup, another one for the macro!) and changing my camera's colouring to sepia.

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.

Laughter Is The Best Medicine

Good evening! Another busy morning left me no time to write up this post, so I'm afraid you're getting it several hours later than usual. My day included card-making, a trip to the post office and lots of shopping! I came home with a sunburn, pretty clothes and things for crafty-activities, so I'm feeling pretty pleased with my productivity!

9 year old P having a laugh:

Seriously, is that child not absolutely gorgeous? Of course she is.

Wanting to practice some portrait photography, I borrowed my (at the time) 9 year old niece for the day and took her out to a "new" park. This is one of the many shots I snapped that day. I can't remember for certain what she was having a laugh at, but I rather suspect that it may have been me!

To get a bit of a different angle with this one, I crouched down under the piece of playground equipment she was using and titled the camera up with macro set on and the camera set to sepia photographs.

Jacaranda Blossoms

Good morning! Today my mother and I are going for a picnic in ithe park with my older brother and the three children. It should be a lot of fun, and there may be the opportunity for some nice photography.

Jacaranda blossoms on a clear day:

Ahh, I love Jacaranda trees so much, and of course now that it's proper Springtime, they're all starting to bloom, and the grass around each tree is gradually becoming a sort of lilac purple as it is covered in fallen blossoms. The original reason for taking this photo, back in 2008, was to show my purple-loving friend how gorgeous the Jacarandas are since she had never seen one.

A definite with the macro, I would also have fiddled slightly with the aperture and shutter settings on this one.

Forgotten Flowers

Once again, I'm cheating and prescheduling. My day intends to include a trip into the city for the Craft & Quilt Fair, which I am quite excited about. I have plans to buy beads and scrapbooking things. None of which I need... ;)

Ah well, on with the post!

Plastic flowers in a decaying cage:

On a trip to the Toowong Cemetery, I spotted these plastic flowers inside a long-forgotten and unkept 'cage'. There was something so sad and yet beautiful about this arrangement that I knew I wanted to capture it on camera. It's just such a bittersweet realisation - this person was once so loved that someone added "forever" flowers to her grave, and it has been so long now that even the forever flowers are fading and drooping inside their broken prison.

Shot in black & white mode with semi-automatic settings, I most likely used Macro and zoom to grab this image.

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!

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.

Little Weed

Some days are hard, others aren't. I'm keeping an eye on the floods, they're rising and they're getting closer to me, but I'm still safe. My nieces are being affected, but they're also safe at the moment.

Another one I snapped outside the Mental Health clinic, I know I edited this a little to make the black and white effect more pronounced, but I can't remember exactly how. This is one of my favourites, but unfortunately I made the mistake of resizing it when I saved it and that makes it completely useless for printing in any form. Sad.

Facing Down Fear

As someone who is quite afraid of spiders, I'm including a warning for today's photo. The image you are about to view is that of a spider! I believe that it's actually a St Andrew's Cross (harmless and quite pretty), but it's nice to know what you're getting yourself into.

I don't have much to say tonight, so I think I'll just put the photo. I may come back in a day or two and add some blurb.

Old-fashioned farm machinery at Brisbane's 2010 Ekka:

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.

Life And Death

It's been warm and sunny today, and I have new shoes! Plus I managed to convince the bank that I am me, even though I gave the wrong access code when I called to get my authentication code reset (because I had no idea what it was) so my crafting supplies are on their way as of tomorrow! Once they arrive, I'll finally be able to use the new dies I got for my Cuttlebug.

Little purple flowers at the bus stop:

After hitting the shops, the weather had cleared up again a tiny bit so I walked to the bus stop, and just before it, in the garden, were these little purple flowers. There was a mixture of healthy flowers and dying ones, and I was lucky enough to capture this photo (for today's Project 365 photo) with one of each!

To get this one I once again had to lie down in the middle of Logan Central, and I experimented with my camera on various settings. I angled the camera up to the flower in the crazy-bright daylight. I was actually aiming for a lot more off-centre than I got - turns out the traffic going past on the main road really knocks these little guys around a lot!

Unfortunately this is one of the photographs I've had to edit - first I had to remove a lamp post from the edge, and then I had to do a small crop to trim off a bit of road that made it onto the shot. Still, I'm fairly happy for it, especially considering the sun was so bright I could barely see what I was doing.

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! ;)

Dusk Bloom

I've spent the better part of the last three hours trying to work out which photo to post for Monday's. I have a billion things un-done and a billion more half-done, but oh well. Too late now!

A yellow flower after some rain, as dusk settled in:

When I stayed in Sydney, my friends took me to a few different places. One of those was an outdoors shopping complex that had some lovely big flowers in the garden there, and this is one of the photos I got of them. As always, any hints on what type of flower this is are welcome!

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!

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.