Spice Girl

Well all the plans for the weekend have been scrapped.  These plans have been in the making for months.  We had to wait for niece to go to Europe for it all to happen.  And she has finally gone!  The plans were to get into Nephew no.2's bedroom and do a total reno.  But rain has stopped play.   The paint won't dry in time and he's still tucked up in bed after some horribly early starts this week.  So plans are delayed and we will attempt it next weekend IF the weather improves.

So what is a girl to do with when she is all geared up for painting and decorating???? Well take some photos I suppose.   My dining table can become a table top studio with the addition of a few flash heads, light stands, backing paper, modifiers and some rather expensive radio triggers called pocket wizards.  I learnt a long time ago and the hard way that me and cables don't work well together after dragging a brand new $4000 camera across a rough cement ledge, over the edge of the ledge and towards the ground because I had cables wrapped around my ankles.   It was only the super fast reaction of a naked woman who caught the camera by its neck strap mere millimetres before it connected with the rocky ground that saved the day.   Well that isn't exactly true, she wasn't totally naked, she was wearing a pair of angles wings at the time...... but that's a whole other story!  The event cause me to race out and buy some cheap shoddy ebay triggers to fire my flash heads, but they were never really reliable. They didn't have good range. OK for use inside, but outside it was a hit and miss affair.    So last year when a good mate was offloading some top of the range pocket wizards I stepped up and bought his goods.   And I have never looked back!  They are so easy to use, easy to store, reliable and work on three different channels and in three different groups and I can control each group individually from the camera.  I love it.

Of course it is super easy now...... but when I first got them it was a different story. Teachers will tell you we all learn differently.   I loved TAFE for its immediacy and face to face teaching and HATED uni because it lacked both.  I learn by watching, asking and doing, not by reading and therefore 3 years of uni  by correspondence was doomed to fail from the start.   So when the Pocket Wizards entered my life I was so lucky to have Josh to show me the intricacies of the world of wireless strobes.  Josh is a genius and I have mentioned before how he believes I am a dinosaur, technologically speaking!  T-Rex!

The dining table has become the table top studio many a time and this weekend the spices came out to play.  It started with chillies a few weeks ago, then star anise and cinnamon quills.  Yesterday the saffron.  Today was vanilla beans and cardamon pods.  My kitchen cupboards are filled with such photographically interesting ingredients.  So that's how I spent the day.  Not painting or pulling beds apart and building new ones. Not washing new bed linen for use and old bed linen for donation. The rain hasn't stopped all day, but I think I did ok all the same!!!