Sunday, January 29, 2012

Project 52: Week 4

veg·e·ta·ble – /vej-tuh-buhl, vej-i-tuh-/ –noun
  • any plant whose fruit, seeds, roots, tubers, bulbs, stems, leaves, or flower parts are used as food.
This week's challenge was an interesting one. I thought it would be easy so left it to late in the week before even taking a single photo... hmmm rookie mistake! By the time I started taking the photos my vegetables that I bought for the shot looked wilted and old and I struggled with getting any photos that didn't look like an average still life shot. But by the end of the week I got back into the swing of things and got a couple of photos that I liked.

I did have a vision of an old style market with prices for the vegetables written on blackboards, but I never managed to make it to a market. So all the photos were taken in my dining room! S without further ado... here are this week's top 3:

In third place is the macro shot of the red onion. I like this shot for its simplicity and as my darling husband says it represents me "lots of different layers" hehe.

(82.0mm, 1/100s, 7/4.0, ISO 500)

In second place is the garlic bulb. I like the contrast between the bulb and the background. This shot (and first place) were taken on a mirror on the dining room table using the highchair tray table to reflect more light (its all about using what we have at home at the moment hehe)...
(105mm, 1/125s, f4.0, ISO 800)

In first place is the carrots (wilted stems and all). It was a lot of hard work getting these carrots to stand up long enough for the photo. Again, this photo was taken on a mirror, in an attempt to revitalise the carrots I have washed them which explains the water on the mirror.
(50mm, 1/50s, f4.0, ISO 800)

Stay tuned for week 5, the theme is self-portrait.

Perth Trail Series: Race 2

The second race of the Perth Trail Series includes some serious climbs! But what goes up must come down so there was a decent downhill as well. Here is the course profile:


With the recent heatwave I was really apprehensive about doing this race (initially forecast to be 40 degrees race day), but as the week progressed the temperatures were revised downwards! Yay! I think it was a nice 24 degrees at 7am on race day so I was very pleased about that.

As with the first race I ran well at the beginning. I paced myself well up the hills knowing that I was in for some respite once we hit 5km. I then really pushed the downhill (I love downhill running and am good at it!). At one stage I hit 3.38/km pace! But even though it was downhill the wheels were bound to fall off as I really do not have the fitness to sustain that. So at 7km we hit a small uphill and I was again passed by a few girls, I grovelled my way back to the end as I really had pushed hard on the downhill! I am getting fitter and stronger but it is hard to be running courses that I know I would smash if I were fully fit! I think I ended up in 6th or 7th position again (I'll edit the post once the actual results are in)! Its great to be out there running again and I just need to be consistent and patient and I know the running form will return!