Home Photography

Last week my daughter and I did a 2 day photography workshop with photographer Pete Longworth.
I gave her the workshop as a Christmas present after she announced to me a couple of months ago that she wanted to be a photographer. She is very artistic and has a great eye for detail.

We went on Monday night and found out what our project for the week was to be.

Home was the theme. 

Then we were to take some photos over the next 5 days and apply some of the rules of composition and exposure that Pete had run through. His mantra for photography is Light, Subject and Composition. I repeat this in my mind quite often.

We returned on Saturday with our photos for him to help us decide which ones to use in a little slide show. Here are some of mine: For the life of me I Can't remember the exact order.
These are some of the things that make up my home. I didn't include photographs of my husband and children, which of course are the centre of my home, as my daughter had a few images of them to choose from and I didn't want to double up. But these are some other things that make up my home.

Babies

The Cairn Terrier team!

A special climbing cactusy plant's flower in the garden that my husband gave me years ago -it only flowers for one day once a year!

Mary Rose, of which I have quite a few!

Pink Butterfly bush

The house of many cowboy boots! - there are many more inside the door too!

My favourite cowboy boots, not the most comfortable, but I just love the texture.

These were my mum's and have been in my homes with her and this home.

Beautiful puss!

Googies -Plus the chooks that go with them!

The Staub pot that usually has something brewing in it at least twice a week.

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And here are a few others that I want to share here

I wanted to have that big nose effect, but now realise that I needed a fish eye lens (which I don't have as it makes me feel ill) rather than my wide angle.

Cheeky!

Check out those eyes!

I loved the exercise and must say that my daughter's images were absolutely fantastic. She has a real eye for it. I found it hard knowing that her's were so good - I really had to lift my game!

We had a little slide night here in the garden and were nearly blown away with a gale, so we moved it into the family room- as I was rearranging furniture , the youngest announced- "Gee I am glad that we cleaned up!" Yeah right, thanks for that!

But the truth was that we had been in a hell of a mess after the removalists delivered furniture from my inlaw's house on Tuesday and I had spent the whole week clearing out cupboards and rearranging things to fit a lot of it in this home. A fair bit of excess and other household bits are in storage in a shipping container in the paddock near the shed. I had a massive, massive week decluttering and so did the kids clearing out their rooms too. But it is done now and I can relax for the next few weeks of the holidays just faffing about- bringing some of those decorative bits up into the house. And of course there's a couple of silver polishing days needed.

When the slideshow was over and most people left for the night there was a wild lightning show going on. I had an expert teacher with us and he was out capturing the lightning strikes. So I had a go too. I had a wide angle lens on and I was trying to get my camera to take the shot in bulb mode and it would not fire ( I think I kow now what it was- AF on the lens!). But then I just switched to manual and followed Pete's instructions. 30 second exposure (30"), f13, ISO 400 and lens on manual not Auto focus and it worked!!!

A little person ran in front of the camera with a torch!

I then cropped this one.

Then out came the sparklers and torches and the kids got right into it!!

More on that in the next post.

 Lets just say that I've had to go out teaching the kids the settings on ALL the cameras in the house and light painting every night since!

Get your cameras out and have a go when you see the next thunderstorm coming!

Simple Christmas 2012

We had a simple Christmas Lunch at a local chinese restaurant!
Shocking I know!
I have always turned myself inside out for Christmas day with the endless cleaning before having visitors plus cooking and the trying to make everyone's food wishes come true.

It was really easy just to push my MIL around the corner to the restaurant from the nursing home.
They had all sorts of seafood on offer. Plus a hot chinese buffet.
It was nothing short of interesting. They did a wonderful job.
I highly recommend going out for Christmas lunch.
Walk in- walk out.
Perfect.

 

 Must say though that I didn't like driving about on Christmas day.

Me being the designated driver meant only 2 drinks!

I'm a bit funny about that when I have my kids in the car, preferring not to drink at all.

Though this organisation meant we had a little boy who was extremely happy not to have to wait for anyone to arrive at our house before he ripped into his presents.

Here is my optic fibre tree that I had up at work.
The kids loved it and would ask for the lights to go off.
I was more than happy to do it.
Ha ha lights off in a library!
They would just sit or stand around and look at it!

The Fireworks at the town carols were fab too.

I meant to blog about these before Christmas as we have made them in the past and they are always a big hit! You can't see it- there is a little chocolate santa in there driving the sleigh.

It's a pretty fun thing to do for gifts for classmates.

Now I am organising things for a New Year's Eve gathering here tomorrow night!
I wonder if we will make it to midnight !!

Jodie shared an Instagram photo with you

Hi there,

Jodie just shared an Instagram photo with you:

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"What's your goal for today? The kids tell me they are just going to hang by the milkbar and push and shove each other out of the way for the best milkshake!! #cairnterrier #puppies #cute"

Thanks,
The Instagram Team

Hot Weather Gardening

The heatwave hitting us at the moment is incredible. It normally doesn't hit 'til later in the season. So many days in the high thirties and low forties are terribly oppressive.

We're fortunate enough to have a swimming pool, so when one of our evaporative air cons decided to blow a pump, we were still able to chill out in the pool.

We're also incredibly fortunate to have a bore and basically a never ending supply of really good water. Our's is pretty good in regards to minerals as well. They are there, but not concentrated enough to worry the garden or household appliances.

I knew the heat was coming and watered the garden right up to maximum moisture levels.

Once the heat hits it's too late to start watering.

I've learned that I have to keep things wet and damp, 

but not quite drowned for them to do well.

Laying in pools of water seems to cook things.

The water laying on top of the lawn and beds just heats up in the sun and boils the plants.

I have lost some patches of lawn this way. At least they grow back easily.

The trick is to water it until there is a flood, but then turn the sprinklers off and have it almost all soaked in by the time the sun shines on it.

There are lots of plants which thrive in this hot climate we have.

All up my driveway is an outstanding display of agapanthus.

It's taken a few years to get them this way! I'm so thrilled with them.

I fell in love with Agapanthus many years ago when at the Peppers Resort in the Hunter valley.

They had them all up their driveway.

Looking so much better without the wooden sleepers.

The 1 year old aggies up the front are again flowering well.

Hoses are always laying about here! No open garden rules at my house!
There's one with a weird deformity going on- another flower coming out of its mid region.

They are truly a beautiful stalwart in my garden.

We got to eat a couple of these apricots and some birds got the rest.
very tasty and rewarding for their first year!

As soon as I finish mowing the lawn, I plug in the bayonet sprinklers in on the lawn and leave them for a day or so. Making sure that none have been on for a couple of days before I mow again in a week's time. I'm often getting bogged in the muddy bits!

I tend to get up really early in the morning and turn the big lawn sprinklers off or move them to a new location, then set my little gentle sprinklers on the garden beds for 2 hours with the timers.

These are moved around each day so each section gets a really big soak about every 4 or 5 days.

I'm looking forward to eating these figgies before the birds do!

The big beds have really filled out. Everything is growing so well, even the paths need spraying with weed killer again.

Then I hand water the veggie garden every single morning.

This is the workflow that's working for me.

That shipping container really needs a coat of paint.
I think I might paint it in the holidays, have compressor and spray gun so I can knock it over easily!

I am told that the best time to pick zucchini (- or courgettes) is just when the flower withers, that way they are at their most tender and not all tough and woody.

Their spikey leaves give me a bit of a rash on my arms. does anyone else have that worry??
Sometimes I think I need welding gloves for protection.

 

When these Roma tomatoes ripen up I think I will be overwhelmed. There are so many!



I like them slow roasted with olive oil, sea salt and Balsamic vinegar.

This year I have planted an heirloom variety of tomato, they are still a bit green when ripe, some would call them black!

 

And who doesn't love a cherry tomato??

I also have some button squash. i'm not sure why I put these in, I am not exactly a big fan. I think I just wanted some squash variety! 

And I still have no idea about when to pull up the beetroot. 

I think I will be roasting them in the same way as the Roma tomatoes. 

 

How do you manage to keep up the water to your garden in the heat?
Do you have a little veggie garden, just something to potter in and fuss over?

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Just trying somethang new!