I'm done...

Sorry to say that 365 is no more. On the negative side, I have had endless trouble with Blogger crashes and not being able to upload photos. But on the positive, my business is booming and just don't have enough hours in the day to devote to this.

I will still post occasionally and I'm still keen to check out your posts so I'll still be around.

It was fun while it lasted and I feel like I have made some new friends as you've all let me into your daily lives.

Take care all.

On a parting note, here are a few of my latest (fingers crossed I can get these to upload).

Day 121

Kissy, kissy.... My gorgeous Godson

Day 120

My grandmother will turn 95 in a few months. She is without a doubt one of my all time favourite people. She is strong, loving, compassionate, funny, supportive, devoted, warm and kind. And I could go on and on in praise of this very special person. My Nan has always been there for me and I know she has made my world a better place.

This is a photo of my Nan ~ Elda Gertrude ~ and was taken, I'm guessing, in about 1913 or 14. She is here with her big sister.

Now this is one of the reasons I love photography so much. I can only hope that someone will look back at one of my photos in 93 years and have a reason to smile.

Day 119

Well it's not wide-angle because I was running around today and didn't get a chance to pull out the camera until about 8pm. It's close-up, but it's not nature. Can you tell what it is?

ETA: Julie was close to right with her guess. I turned off all lights except one small desk lamp which I aimed at a CD. I tilted the CD slightly until the colours looked good and then took some shots. It was hard to get focus in the near-dark and I had to use a really slow s.s. but I thought the OOF ones were cooler than the sharp ones.

1/25 @ f/2.8 ISO 1600

Day 118

Oh, I'm feeling the need to get out of my rut. I'm boring myself with nature close-ups. I'm off to find the wide angle lens that hasn't been on my camera for about 12 months!

Day 117

A trip to the zoo seemed like a good idea for today. And it was. Although it's still raining we had a fun day and even manged to stay pretty dry. The only problem was trying to shoot and not get the camera wet - so most pics were from the indoors exhibits.

Day 116

It's been raining now for days. I shouldn't complain because we've been in a severe drought here for a long time. But it's SO boring.

Anyway between showers I ran outside and had a play with some raindrops on leaves. This one was an experiment - deliberately OOF. Looking at it through the viewfinder the raindrops sparkled like diamonds. When I focussed, it lost the magic. So I unfocussed and shot.

Day 115

This one was taken a while ago but I just wanted to show you where I woke up this morning. My friends live by the water and I stayed with them last night. I didn't have my camera with me (shock, horror!!) so I dug out this shot taken from their private jetty.

Day 114

I was running around all day today and didn't even touch my camera. So here's one from a couple of weeks ago. Playing with late afternoon light.

Day 113

Well not a very exciting post to celebrate getting my camera back. But what can I say, it's raining.

Bored, rain outside, foggy window inside and lamp light ~ this was the result. At least I made myself laugh :)

Day 112

Well they have promised my camera will be back tomorrow. Yeah, I've heard that before. So another old one. This one is from the beach a few weeks ago.

Day 111

Ahhhhh my camera is not back yet. I'm not coping very well without it. I really need to get myself a back-up camera!!! Another of the never ending series of "side of the road" photos.

Day 110

Hopefully the last of this series from the side of the road. I should get my camera back tomorrow. It's been frustrating not having it. But I did take some Holga pics that I can share as soon as they come back from the lab.

Day 109

Yet another side of the road photo...

Day 108

Another from the side of the road...

Day 107

Doing the 365 challenge has certainly made me take more notice of the world around me. Yesterday I was running about 20 minutes early for a session in a lovely suburb overlooking a National Park. I managed to fill that 20 minutes (and could have happily spent at least another hour) playing at the side of the road. A wonderful mix of blackberries, ferns, grass and wild flowers.

More to come in the next few days. I wont be taking any new shots as my camera is going in for maintenance/cleaning (ahhhh sand ~ the penalty for my love of shooting on the beach).

1/200 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 200

Day 106

Well, I'm on a roll with the beach theme. So here's another one. The golden sun reflecting off the wet sand late this afternoon. I did a fabulous maternity session at the beach ending with some silhouettes against the sunset. The light was sensational.

1/650 ~ f/5.6 ~ ISO 100

Day 105

At the beach again this morning.

1/200 ~ f/4 ~ ISO 100

Day 104

Self portrait...ha ha

I'm trying to make the most of the beach because winter is on the way. I'm not a fan of the cold. This is from my early morning walk today.

1/200 ~ f/5.6 ~ ISO 100

Day 103

I have been playing with an action made and very kindly shared by Tammy.

Here's a photo from the other day. I was supposed to be working so don't tell anyone I was at the beach with K & J (LOL).

#1 Tammy's Urban Vintage Action

#2 Robyn's High Key Portrait Action

#3 SOOC

Day 102

I recently read about a technique for macro photography on Michael Brown's blog. The image is created by handholding the camera and simply cramming the lens into a flower. I had a play with this today. I don't have a real macro lens yet but I still had some interesting results. This was the one I liked best. I crammed the lens into a clump of grass.

1/400 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 100

Day 101

A bit of colour on a dull day....

1/400 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 200

Day 100 - WOOHOO!!!!!!

Well I made it ~ 100 days. Only 265 to go... I took some photos of the Opera House through this arch earlier in the year but the exposure wasn't very good. So I tried again and I am much happier with the results this time.

1/500 ~ f/22 ~ ISo 200 ~ Canon EOS 30D ~ 24-70L lens @ 24mm

Day 99

Playing with candles and the camera.

1/125 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 400

0.5s ~ f/4.5 ~ ISO 400

Day 98

What's the newest addition to my camera bag? No it's not the 5D, no it's not the 85mm 1.2 lens, and no it's not the macro I desperately want.

Meet Ralph ~ He's a $1 squeaky dog's toy from the pet's ailse in the supermarket. He's awesome for getting eye contact from babies and toddlers (at leat the first 3 or 4 times LOL).

~ he was named by a 2 y.o. boy from my last family session.

Both 1/60 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 200 ~ window light

Day 97

More rain. This is quite abstract. It's the rain hitting the window ledge and bouncing back up. I used a quite strong colour pop action and I was quite happy with the results. The SOOC was a bit flat and dull.

It's best viewed at full size - just click on the image to enlarge

1/250 ~ f/3.5 ~ ISO 800

Day 96

It rained today! Inside looking out...

Day 95

Boring, boring, boring... But it's a photo!!! Some days inspiration just eludes me.

Day 94

Wow, on the countdown to 100 days now. I don't think I've ever stuck at anything for this long. Just wish I could be as consistent with going to the gym or dieting LOL.

Day 93

A twirly vine and shallow DOF. And to answer those who ask if I shoot with a macro lens, the answer is no. I shoot 99% of the time with the 28-70L 2.8 lens. It has a macro setting but it's not really a macro lens. I had an awesome maco with my film camera and I miss it. A good macro is on the list but because it's a "for fun" lens and not a "for work" lens, it'll have to wait.

1/80 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 500

Day 92

Have you ever chased butterflies with your camera? If you have you'll know it's no easy task to actually get one to land in the right place at the right time. So when one lands right next to me when I have my camera in hand, I shoot. Even if it's a car window that it lands on. It's not incredibly sharp - focus is out and I didn't have time to change ISO and ap. But I don't really care. I've got my butterfly!!!

1/320 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 800

Day 91

Now I promised myself this blog wouldn't contain photos from my work sessions - it's a just for fun one. But I couldn't resist posting one of the out-takes from yesterday's session. I always suggest a couple of outfits for my location shoots. But with 4 kids, changeable and unpredictable weather and a very keen mum, we ended up with a heap of clothes. This is DJ with half (!) of them - LOL. What I hadn't told them was that the beach we were going to was a bit of a walk away and they had to climb over/up/down wet slippery rocks.

DJ and Michelle if you're reading this, the proofs are almost ready.

Day 90

Did an awesome family session this morning. 4 kids from 2 - 11. It was so much fun. I'm in the middle of p.p. now but need a break. So I've just been catching up on everyone's blogs. Some lovely work from lots of you - it's amazing how many people are still regularly doing POTD. I know we all miss a day here and there, but we're still going. YAY for us!!!! Thanks for those that are still commenting too. It's much appreciated.

This one is from a garden near the beach where I did my session. I snapped it while waiting for the family to arrive.

Day 89

This tree is amazing. The branches are bright bright red. It has bright red berries at some times of the year and other times (like now) it is totally bare.

f/2.8 ~ 1/250 ~ ISO 100

Day 88

Not sure if this is a leftover from last Christmas or getting in really early for next....

Day 87

Making the most of the flowers that are still around. Unlike most of you we are coming into the colder months now.

1/100 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO 800

Day 86

Another from my daily "about & out" walk.

1/250 ~ f/4 ~ ISO 100

Day 85

All of this made by the tiniest little spider. What a work of art....

1/200 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISO200

Day 84

I have no idea what this is. Walking under a tree I looked up and shot this. I love how it turnd out.

1/400 ~ f/2.8 ~ ISo 250

Day 83

Just one more from the wonderful Indian journey....

Day 82

Well, I've been felling a bit nostalgic since I started to go through old photos. One thing I think I don't to enough is go back and look at the old stuff. It used to be boxes of prints in the top of the cupboard, now it's folders on the hard drive and on CD/DVD.

So this leads me to today's photo. This is a temple outside of Jaipur in India (May 2005). I love this photo and I love the memories it brings back to me of an amazing journey that changed my life. It's a very long story and I wont bore you with the details, but it was here that I realised that to be truly happy I needed to follow my dreams... One of those dreams was to be a photographer. And I'm on my way!

I'm going to have this printed BIG and put up in my office to remind me every day why I'm doing this...

Day 81

Pelican on street light in the sunrise. OK, not really!!! I amused myself tonight by compositing a boring pic of a pelican (actually on a street light) onto a sunset sky I took a few days ago.