Christmas is approaching at an alarming pace. This year I made some gifts for family and friends. This is sooooooo not me, but I was impressed with the quality of the RedBubble calendars that Moo made for her "Looking for Love" exhibition and took the plunge and made my own. I had 5 calendars and 4 diaries made. The diaries were a complete leap of faith. I had them printed in France, sight unseen, quality unknown and I am more than happy with them.

October and most of November have been lost in bloggerville. Mum became ill and I had 5 weeks of novice nursing filling my world!! I did mange to get SOME pics taken and it is best if I leave them to speak for themselves.

Gallery Raw called for submissions for an exhibition to be held for the month of October to celebrate Mens Health Week. I had an idea for a shot and I only needed a heavily tattooed man to pull it off. Work provides me with access to many fit young males and I only needed to ask about until I found one with the right Tatts. When asked if he would be interested in posing he originally hesitated, but it didn't take much to convince him. A few days later I popped around to his place and with his lovely wife holding the reflector I took 6 shots of him. I also took another 6 shots of them as a couple. This shot was the first taken and was the image I had envisaged. I was in and out of their hime in about 20 minutes. I converted the image from Raw to Jpeg and tweaked the sharpening. I had it printed as a 20x30 inch metallic paper print thru Digital Works in Victoria and had it mounted and matted thru The Framing Game at Charlestown. The black matt was not really black enough, so I had it matted with a black linen finish matt and it looks great. It has been hung at the front door of Gallery Raw. I am really happy with it. It is the shot I envisaged, the print came out really well and the mounting and matting is really well done. I love it when it all goes as smoothly as this shot.

A Day at the Fair

My favourite Ranga and I made the long trip to Broke today. Well worth the drive to find the biggest collection of vintage and veteran cars, trucks, military vehicles and farm machinery I have ever seen. We started walking thru the cars and it appeared they would simply never end.

There was even one dude there with a ute full of traps. Mouse traps, rat traps, fly traps, fox traps, dingo traps and a whole heap of other traps I have never seen before.

Fast and Furious

Brad with the Blad organised a shoot out with some mad FMX motorbike riders at Redhead. Chicko and Trigger rode and rode and rode around their track for a couple of hours. Trigger came a cropper at one stage, but like a true madmad he got straight back on!! Just a couple of pics for you to enjoy!

Long time coming!

Since I freely admit I am not a whizz on the computer you will not find it suprising that I penned a long and detailed blog with appropriate pictures and subsequently lost the lot before posting! Thus, this post may well be short and sharp.

The most exciting news to share was that after months of trying Sal, Duncan and I managed a rare guided tour of the decomissioned Wangi Wangi Power Station. 3 and a bit hours of sheer bliss, with a touch of fear thrown in for good measure! I took STACKS of photos. Here are some.....

I shot about 300 and you might think that there is little of interest in an old power station, but you would be so very very wrong!! They even had a theatre where they showed both movies and educational material. There was a laboratory too, which was strangely still set up as though the lab technicians left on a friday and forgot to come back to work monday! It was a little eerie!! The 65 acre site now had government approval for 80 freestanding homes and 110 apartments. It will bring great prosperity and employment to the area. I can't wait to see it finished. The owner and developer has great vision.

As I don't want this post to disappear into the ether I shall post........Now!

Why the clowns?

Well it's been a while, but my best excuse is that I have been very busy with lots of bits happening. So why the clown shot above. Well that shot is now what Domayne use to display the various sizes they can produce in store at Kotara. Yah for me!

Clowns aside I've been toying with the idea of doing something more challenging photographically. Point and shoot is easy, no matter what camera you use. But using light to create a more interesting image is where photography really begins. Thus I have struck upon the idea of pushing myself where I have the least experience. So a series of portraits is happening. There is a list of 25plus people I want to shoot, following a specific theme and maybe ending in an exhibition. At very least a blurb book, but an exhibition is the plan. I have approached the first two victims....err subjects and one agreed without hesitation. One is considering her position. I hope she will come around.

Whilst on the photographic theme I went of the Scott Kelby "World Wide Walk" on saturday last. A group of 50 people walked the same route through Newcastle and captured what images they could to signify Newcastle. Images are submitted to a comp and are judged locally and then regionally and in every growing groups until a series of World Wide shots exist. There are prizes, lots of them and wih big numbers. but that was not the reason I went along. I went to meet some new faces. People who knew nothing of Flickr and its addictiveness.

I managed 5 decent shots for the day, but nothing award winning.

The other big photo news is that I was asked by Schoolbookdepository (aka Duncan) to be his reflector holder and spare camera carrier on two a model shoots on Redhead Beach recently. I've assisted him before and always come away with a head full of knowledge and fresh ideas. After much nagging I actually took along my gear (with new 70-200 lens) and took a few shots of Lizzie. She must have been cold. I know I was and I was dry and in a massive overcoat!! Lizzie is a business and economics student and part time model. I really appreciate her allowing me to shoot her and I thank Duncan for his faith in me as a photographer.

More later.............

Saturday.......off to Sydney with Lexie, Lauren and Moo to see the taping of Good News Week at the ABC Studios in Harris Street Ultimo. Parked the car, had some food, bought stuff at paddys markets and walked to the studio. Even after all that we arrived miles too early. In fact we arrived just after they closed the doors on the earlier taping. A very nice security bloke saw us and asked us if we were late. No, early. So he offered to sneak us in for the first show too!!! Yahoo!!! it was fantastic. Adam Hill is the funniest bloke and a tidge naughty too. There was an american comedian on the same episode and he was either under the influence of something possibly illegal or he had a very strange sense of humour. Either way there was a fair bit of laughter everytime he opened his mouth. The taping of the first episode was heaps longer than the taping of second episode, but both were fun.

Only took a few shots inside the studio and even fewer in Ultimo itself. Took this shot and LOVED the colours. It was an old bill poster on a derelict facade of a long since mostly demolished building and it grabbed me! I only took 2 shots, but for some reason the poster grabbed me!

Another Long Weekend!

Another long weekend has come around. I'm beginning to like the whole RDO system. This weekend began with closing the Gallery Raw exhibition on friday night and dinner at the Tapas Bar in Hamilton, then saturday I delivered one of the three images I sold at the exhibition to Mrs Eley in Newcastle. Sunday saw Lexi, Lauren and myself hit Catho Beach to photograph the coal loader before it disappears forever. Lunch at Caves Beach was rather nice and I took a few interesting shots there. It is now monday and that seems like a great day to go shopping!

Well this one sold! And it was the second one sold at the Gallery Raw exhibition in the Hunter Street Mall. No-one was more suprised than me when Mark St Clair, the exhibition curator, rang me twice on saturday saying he had sold my shots. Whoot!! Whoot!!

So easter has been pretty big photographically speaking. Took a few pics at the traditional Good Friday fish BBQ at Rods place, saturday sold two images and monday had a trip to Sydney with the flickrchicks for a shootout at the Chinese Gardens at Darling Harbour. This one is from the Gardens. Moo had a clash of cultures when dressed in traditional costume and the urge to perform like a Toyota commerical swept over her.

Yes, she is loopy!!

This weekend might hold some indoor photographic pursuits as apparently it is going to bucket down!

So this is the shot. My first attempt at photographing a semi clad person. Here is totally lit by natural light for a big bay window. It came out ok, I think. Well he is happy with it at least.

Since then I have been very fortunate in being selected to have some of my images displayed in Gallery Raw, in the Hunter Street Mall. Opening night this friday. Yah! Sure there is always two sides to a coin, the downside here is that some people are unhappy that i had so many images selected. But I am proud and happy. I'll be flabbergasted if anything sells, I think the shots are either a bit personal or too obscure to be seen as wall art by the masses. Again, I am very happy with my achievements and delighted that Gallery Raw exists and is available to enthuasists like myself.

In dire need of a break from the coal face, I wangled a week off. With an RDO at the exit end I now have 10 GLORIOUS days off..........but what is a girl to do with 10 glorious days off? Well if today was an average day I shall in face have 10 glorious exhausting days off!!

Shuffling cars, mothers and loads of washing gave way to an afternoon birthday party for a beautiful one year old Eliza. 165 images later (oh I should have shot in jpeg not 21mp Raw) I am still converting to jpeg now. Downloading took FOREVER, but did give me a chance to get some dinner into me and some washing up done. I had hoped to upload a photo or two to flickr tonight, but I don't think that will come to fruition now.

Tomorrow I will have my first ever attempt at shooting a semi clad person with my flash/softbox combination. MMMMmmmm I THANK HIM for being my guinea pig. I don't really hold out hope for great images, but Rome wasn't built in a day, apparently!!

First day of another 3 day weekend for me. There is so much I need to do and so little of it will be fun! I'm still de-shitting. Removing things from the house that I don't use or don't want to see. I'm nearing the end of this process and down to the really fiddly bits. My interest has wained. I know the result will be good, but the process is bad! I'd prefer to be out with the camera taking a few snaps, but this mess won't clean itself up! There are piles of 'stuff' everywhere. 'Stuff" i don't want is all going to vinnies. Even though I thinned out the wardrobe and drawers after the Vic fires, I reckon I can do another cull today. Storage is the big issue. I have none left!!!

Monday will be interesting. I'm going out to take some pics (going on a shoot sounds so pretentious) with 3 mates. We are heading back to the old Ward 21 ruins. I'm driving the Laser in.......so I'll pack a few shovels for the trip!! There has been a fair amount of rain and the tracks might be a bit harder than normal to traverse, but we'll give it a go. I'm happy to walk in but one guy is bringing a portable lighting setup and doesn't fancy crossing the collapsed bridge with his gear. Dunno why? It is only about an 8 foot drop into the water!!

Here's a pic I took last trip there.

I wonder what, if anything, will be left standing this trip.

Now I'm going to try an add a photo....

this may or may not work!

First Blog

Well I have finally succumb to the modern age and have my own blog. God I hope someone finds my ramblings interesting. I expect most will revolve around photography and whether the taken shot should be transformed into graphic art by computer manipulation or if that is anti art.



Might throw in a recipe from time to time too and probably a few links to my flickr or redbubble pages to whore my images about. There may also be a fair few entries where I whinge about the workplace and managements inept action........ even though it is so easy to criticise when not having to make the big decisions or pay the bills every month. There is probably a thousand valid reasons for never publishing this blog, but I think my ego wants me to hit the orange "continue" button.