Project 52: Week 8

red - noun, adjective, red·der, red·dest.

noun

• any of various colors resembling the color of blood; the primary color at one extreme end of the visible spectrum, an effect of light with a wavelength between 610 and 780 nm.

Well, it wasn't until I started this weeks challenge that I realised how little red I have in my life. Round the house there is one pair of shoes, one dress and some kids toys. In the local neighbourhood there is a whole lot less!!! I did find this sign though (not part of the challenge but needed to be published!)....


If I was organised and had my camera on me 24/7 I would have been able to get some cool shots of this car (Mustang- one of Jason's favourites) but all I had was my phone (again not posted as part of the challenge).So to the actual photos from this week. I am cheating this week and posting 4 photos. I just don't have the time to sit her pondering over them all and am sitting on the fence for third place!

In equal third is the gerbera macro and the brick wall! The gerbera macro is here because I love macro shots and the first 10,000 photos I took were of flowers (I may be exaggerating slightly but it was a lot).

The brick wall made it to the final cut because its such an inane thing to take a photo of but I think the photo was great quality. I wanted to show that photos can be taken when there really isn't a lot of special things around!
In second place is the drops on the gerbera petal... the background to this photo is actually Ethan's paddling pool, not the sky! In first place is my raspberry lemonade! While I am not 100% happy with the background I just couldn't look past the richness and depth in the lemonade itself!

I hope you enjoyed this week's photos as much as I enjoyed taking them. Stay tuned for next week, the theme is "shine" (I am not sure what possessed me when setting this theme!)

Black eye!

It's happened! Our little adventurer boy is sporting his first black eye! He took a big tumble in the bath a couple of nights ago! There were tears from mummy and Ethan but in the end I think that I was more frightened than he was!

Photos from over east...

While in Queensland I got to take some other photos that weren't for Project 52 and weren't of Ethan! I just wanted to share a few favourites with you all (in no particular order).

Ethan's visit over East

Last weekend Ethan and I traveled over to the Sunshine Coast to spend a couple of days with my family.We stayed our first night with my sister Tiffinee, her husband Mark and their two boys- Harrison and Hudson. The next day we headed up the coast to Mum and Dad's house for a few days. My brother Tyson was just home from Canada so we got to spend some time with him as well. On our last day Ethan and I spent some time with my sister Camille, her partner Colin and daughter Summer. All in all it was a great trip (apart from the mossies and sandflies) but as per usual just not enough time! Here are a couple of photos from the trip.

Ethan with his nanny.Ethan walking in the lovely garden with nanny.
Ethan bonding over a beer with poppy.
Ethan sharing an ice block with Poppy.
Ethan made a new friend (Bella).Ethan tried to play with all nanny's pot plants (she was much better at the "no" than I am, Ethan listened to her more than me).Ethan got up to lots of mischief.
Ethan showed his Nanny and Poppy how much he likes food! Especially mango!Ethan LOVES playing with water. Lucky it had been raining so it wasn't rationed!
We visited the botanical gardens (a great day out). Ethan had LOTS of fun in the rain (there were way too many cute photos so I needed to use lots of them).All in all a great trip with some wonderful memories. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos with Tiff and her family, Camille and her family or Tyson!! I need to do better at that next time!

Project 52: Week 7

time [tahym] noun, adjective, verb, timed, tim·ing.

noun

• the system of those sequential relations that any event has to any other, as past, present, or future; indefinite and continuous duration regarded as that in which events succeed one another.
• duration regarded as belonging to the present life as distinct from the life to come or from eternity; finite duration.
• a system or method of measuring or reckoning the passage of time: mean time; apparent time; Greenwich Time.
  
• a limited period or interval, as between two successive events: a long time.
• a particular period considered as distinct from other periods: Youth is the best time of life.

This weeks theme of time wasn't too hard. I was based in Queensland (at my mum and dad's house) so I had a different environment to shoot in as well, which was great.

Third place was the tree rings. As a tree grows, it produces new layers of wood around the trunk, just under the bark. If a tree is cut down, the layers are visible in a cross section. The layers appear as a set of concentric circles known as tree rings. In general, one layer of wood grows each year. Each layer consists of two colors of wood: light-colored "earlywood" that grows in the spring and summer plus darker, denser "latewood" from the fall and winter.Second place goes to the clock hanging in my mum and dad's house. This is a very literal interpretation of time! Some of my other photos (which didn't make the cut for this post) were more abstract.
In first place is the time signature in the music sheet (the Norwegian Cradle Song for those that are interested). In a music sheet, the time signature appears at the beginning of the piece, as a time symbol or stacked numerals immediately following the key signature of the clef. There are various types of time signatures, depending on whether the music follows simple rhythms or involves unusual shifting tempos.
Stay tuned for next week, the theme is "Red".

Jason's job

I realise lots of the blog is about me or Ethan and not a lot about Jason! So I am looking at changing that a bit!

So what does Jason do for a job?

Well, Jason works for a small company called Yambay, out of its Subiaco office. According to its website "Yambay provides mission critical mobile solutions to the enterprise market serving customers that need a highly functional solution with interoperability across all core systems"... sheesh what a mouthful that is! I'll attempt to explain it in layman's terms.

One of Yambay's clients is Western Power (a State Government owned corporation that builds, maintains and operates the electricity network in the south west corner of Western Australia). Jason's company provides the software that Western Power uses to maintain the powerlines. For example, if a powerline comes down, then the software from Jason's company dispatches linesmen to fix the downed line.

Jason's official job title is "Application Specialist". That means that he is the "go-to" man at Western Power to talk to or solve any issues or training needs regarding the software that Yambay provides. Lately Jason has been tripping around the state visiting the depots- this sometimes involves driving 300km to get to a 2 hour meeting!

Jason sent me a picture of his desk last week!

Project 52: Week 6

line  [lahyn] noun, verb, lined, lin·ing.noun

• a mark or stroke long in proportion to its breadth, made with a pen, pencil, tool, etc., on a surface: a line down the middle of the page.
• something arranged along a line, esp. a straight line; a row or series: a line of trees.
• a number of persons standing one behind the other and waiting their turns at or for something; queue.
• something resembling a traced line, as a band of color, a seam, or a furrow: lines of stratification in rock.
• a furrow or wrinkle on the face, neck, etc.: lines around the eyes.
• an indication of demarcation; boundary; limit: the county line; a fine line between right and wrong.

In third place is:
In second place:
And in first place is my photo taken at the Perth Criteriums this week. It gets first place because it is really hard to get good cycling shots- especially with the combination of camera and lens that I have! Now, the reason it fits in with this weeks theme is outlined below.

A criterium, is a bike race held on a short course often run on closed-off city center streets. Race length can be determined by a number of laps or total time. The winner is the first rider to cross the finish line without having been "lapped." Success in road criteriums requires a mix of good technical skills — in particular, the ability to corner smoothly while "holding your line" on the road, as well as rapidly and sharply — and riding safely with a large group on a short circuit and exceptional "sprint" ability to attack other riders and repeatedly accelerate hard from corners.

So there we have it... this photo shows the riders "holding their line" as they take the corner. What isn't clear from this photo is just how fast they are actually taking this corner! Stay tuned for next week's photos, the topic is "time".

Mischief man

Ethan's a little mischief man, he gets into anything and everything. Its all good when its his toy baskets in the lounge...Or his toy storage in the dining room area...
It's not so good when its the nappy bin (no photo of this one- yuck) or the pot plants, both indoors...
And outdoors...
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Ethan is a very fast crawler.
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He is especially fast when I open the fridge or cupboard!!
He gets everywhere and I need eyes in the back of my head, but I don't mind at all- who could resist this angel!

Project 52: Week 5

self-por·trait [self-pawr-trit, -treyt, -pohr-, self-] noun

• a portrait of oneself done by oneself.

Wow, what a hard week. I don't like photos of myself at the best of times, and trying to take one of myself and actually liking it was always going to be a major challenge. I think that I took over 200 photos and deleted about 195 of them!

I did learn a few things about taking self portraits though:

1. You need to have something to focus on when setting the picture up i.e something to stand in your place in the photo. Height doesn’t matter so much as distance, but try to match it to yourself as best as you can.
2. You also need to use both auto and manual focus. First, focus on your stand-in object using auto focus. Then, with the object still in focus, switch your lens to manual focus. This then gives you the freedom to tweak settings without messing with your established point of focus. You then just need to make sure you stand perfectly on your mark each time you take a photo.
3. You need to use the timer and burst (taking multiple images at once) functions. You need plenty of time to get in position and figure out what you’re doing. Most cameras let you vary the length of the timer as well as take multiple photos in succession. I set mine to 10 second timer and taking 8 photos at once.
4. You need to capture you; and
5. A certain amount of post photo processing will be needed, at the very least photos will need to be cropped.
   

Point 4 is where I failed, I managed the technical aspects of the shot well but my photos just didn't "say" what I wanted them to say. I had so many ideas, but just couldn't seem to pull them off. This challenge is about learning and growth and its not about taking amazing photos all the time (of course I would love that, but its just not possible). I have learned this week and have experimented so I think that's a good thing.

Without further ado, here are this week's photos (no first, second and third, but 4 photos that worked and that I liked). I have decided to post them all as Ethan is awake and I have no time/energy to try and decide on a top three. They are here for all sorts of reasons. Please comment and let me know your thoughts!

Photo 1: This photo is here because this is how Ethan (and Jason) see me all the time! From behind the lens!
Photo 2: This is me, hiding in the shadows! Pretty representative of my feelings around photos! I just don't like them!Photo 3: this photo was all about applying the techniques I listed above i.e. auto and manual focus etc. I wanted my face to be blurry and out of focus and I am pleased that I achieved it.Photo 4: Getting a macro shot in focus as a self portrait is HARD. But I got there in the end! Well as you can see, I did a fair amount of post photo processing this week, but learning new techniques is what this is about so although I wasn't 100% happy with the actual photos this week, I have developed (excuse the pun) as a photographer!

Stay tuned for next week's photos, the topic is "lines".