Away

It's been quiet here because we have been away. 

           A blissful beach holiday with no phones or internet.

            Days of walking and watching, fishing and resting.

So peaceful, just the beautiful sounds of wildlife and waves to listen to.

It was really hard coming home, particularly when we hit the city traffic. But I do feel rested and restored and ready to get back into daily life. 

I Heart Faces "Pet" photo challenge

I wasn't planning to enter the pet photo challenge on I Heart Faces. Our lovely ginger cat passed away this week after a brief illness and I haven't really been in the mood for photos. But today THIS happened, my husband brought home this gorgeous little guy. I had no choice, I had to capture that cuteness!

And then, I couldn't leave this little guy out! He's rather taken with his new playmate.

Black and white photography

Black and white photography is, to me, the most captivating photography. 

Stripped back and pared down the image speaks volumes.

When I first learned photography at the age of 16, I developed my photos only in black and white.

Perhaps this explains my attachment and love for black and white. Watching images appear on the photo paper as I worked through the developing process was really quite magical.

I love colour too, but sometimes these days we are a little over saturated with it and can't appreciate the message or feel of an image because it screams at our senses.

A black and white image is quiet, unobtrusive and gentle.

It invites the eye to take it's time, to drink in the image and all it contains.

The classic timelessness of a black and white will never cease to appeal to me. 

I haven't been picking up the camera a great deal lately, the cold weather begs me to stay indoors at the loom or the wheel (and fibre is so warm!) But I have been going over some older images and re-editing in black and white. I'm really enjoying the process and seeing the images from a completely different aspect.

How about you? Do you like black and white too? What do you like (or not like so much) about it? 

Fickle

I've definitely caught the weaving bug now that the weather is cool and often rainy. The loom is very well dressed these days! 

Sometimes I lament that I seem unable creatively to stick to one thing for long - as the title of this post suggests, I am very fickle! I become obsessed with doing something (weaving right now) for a length of time, and then it's on to the next thing. 

This can have benefits - I do come back to things, they don't get abandoned entirely, unless I really don't enjoy it. I'm fairly multi skilled and most, if not all of those skills can be used together. However, I often think it would be really wonderful if I could keep the focus on just one or two things and really build that skill to a high level. It seems that the need for change and newness are just part of my restless nature.

I'm still taking photos but the photography passion has subsided a little too. Sigh, such a pity. I'll keep going regardless, I still have much to learn and many improvements to make.

The rain brings fresh inspiration and life to the garden. We have lots of plans for renewing the garden.

The mexican orange blossom is so pretty in a vase with it's dark, lush leaves and dainty, sweet flowers.

Plenty of lemons on the tree, but no eggs from the chooks! I just find that when there are lemons around I always want some eggs as well.

The classic and dainty foxglove.

How about you? What's happening in your part of the world? How are you finding the gradual change in seasons? What are you working on? I'd love to hear from you!

Woven poncho finished

So, the poncho is finished! The hand dyed combined with baby pink yarn worked perfectly.

The yarn is all 8ply, which gives a lovely, light, yet warm feel to the garment.

At this point my little model decided that Mum had really taken enough photographs already.

We escalated into silliness.

And you know you're pretty much done when it gets to this point!

Anyway, I'm super happy with how the poncho came out, it was a big experiment for me as I made the design from scratch. Now the question is whether to make more for the Etsy shop, what do you think?

Break the rules photography

Photography is so much more artistic than I ever knew before. Once you have a reasonable amount of the technical knowledge, the rest is up to you. This is what I really love about photography - the artistic freedom coupled with technical skill. It's so exciting and challenging!

What I wasn't prepared for when delving into the art of photography is all the so called "rules" one must follow in order to achieve "good" photos. The rule of the thirds, posing rules, lighting rules. I have found something much more useful than rules. Experience. Passion. Experiments. 

Some will look at one of my landscapes and say "but you haven't used the rule of thirds" or "your horizon line isn't precise" and "it's over/under exposed". 

When I look at a photo I'm led by the feeling it gives me. Do I love the image? Was capturing the image a positive experience? Was it fun?

If I can say a definite YES to these questions, then my motto is:

Go ahead and break the rules!

This moment

Linking up with this moment on Soulemama :)

Simple photography backdrop

Our garden is a great location for photography portraits, but, having just arrived at Autumn, it's a little dry and not looking it's best. Being a natural light photographer, I wanted to head outside but I was also wanting something a little different for a portrait session with my littlest sweetie pie and her fluffy friend.

I grabbed my favourite bed sheet, pegged it on the clothes line and we were in business! If it's a breezy day you will have the challenge of the sheet moving (which you can see in the right corner here) in which case you could possibly weight it down with something at the bottom. I kind of like the feeling that the blowing sheet gives to this photo though.

Next, your editing program can be used to achieve a variety of looks still using the same backdrop and different poses.

A plain sheet would also work well if you were looking for a plain backdrop with natural light, but I think the pretty floral one suits my little sweetie just fine, don't you?

Everyday Life Photo Challenge

I've entered the I Heart Faces photo challenge for the first time. The theme is "Everyday Life". Our every day life involves a lot of reading and this scene of a child lying on the floor, engrossed in a book is a very common one. If you're interested in entering the challenge or just viewing all the wonderful entries, follow this link.

The Red Riding Hood project

I've had this project in mind for a while now. I got the cape made (if you want to make your own, I found the instructions here very helpful. For free hand drawing the hood, I used one of my daughter's hoodies and roughly traced the outline. Make it big!) got the rest of the costume together, then just had to wait for a suitable day to travel to the location.

The weather conditions weren't the best but I managed to get a lot of shots I could use.

My little model was a trooper but did wear out fairly quickly (actually she just wanted to play and explore the forest, fair enough I guess!)

At least one of these photos will be used in the final 6 that I need for a portfolio building assignment. 

I feel that I've found my photography niche, now I just need to keep building my skills and hopefully getting some exposure (pun not intended!)

In case you're wondering what my next creative photography project might be, don't worry, I've been planning it for weeks and will start on the costume very soon :)

365 project

 Last week I joined the 365 project. I thought it would be a good way to form the habit of picking up the camera every day and challenging myself to make the photo interesting. I'm on day 8 and loving it so far! Here are some of my photos from the week: 

Night Beach - my first proper attempt at long exposure for a landscape.

Rainbow Lorikeet - A pair of them have been enjoying our plums. Fortunately we have a bumper crop this year, so plenty to share.

Tomatoes - they are ripening by the dozens each day and make a delightful mouthful.

One of our beautiful girls - I love this portrait!

If you are interested in the 365 project or want to follow my project, you can find it here.

Progress

I submitted my fifth assignment during the week for the photography course I'm doing and am happy to say that I'm powering along, soon I'll be to the half way mark. 

This was a challenging "low key" image. I'm loving trying new things with the camera.

We have had so much rain over the past week that the garden is like a different space now. It's so great to be going into Summer with a green garden and full rain tank.

The vegetable garden is an assortment of things mostly grown from seed. Tomatoes are coming and we just ate some of the first dwarf beans today, good stuff!

Some favourite photos from this week

Black and white.

Colour. 

I often lament that I live in part of a conglomeration of suburbs that sometimes stretch on endlessly with little to differentiate between them. I think "if I lived on the coast, as I dream I will one day, I could take the most magnificent photos!" But in the meantime, if you look around a lot, there are still many things to inspire. 

One of my aims in starting a photography course was to improve the photos I take of my family. Well, the kids are always with me and they are willing subjects, so I shouldn't complain! And, my portraits have improved a lot in just a couple of months. 

Yesterday we went to our local sensory gardens for the older kids to work on their movie. While they were shooting with the video camera, I got busy with my camera and my littlest model (who loves having her photo taken thankfully!) In a relatively short amount of time I brought home a lot of shots that I really like. 

The module I'm working on now is going to be a challenging one - low key and high key shots. I'll let you know how I progress :)