Fashions on the Field - a photographic experience

I went to the races by myself today because Karyn wasn't well.  There were 2 reasons, firstly because we'd already committed to going to a Women in Racing event there, and also because one of our horses was running in the last race.

The WiR lunch was OK, but a bit boring because I was sitting at a table with strangers with no-one to talk to.  Everyone else were couples.  So I decided to walk around outside and take some photos.  As luck would have it, there was a "fashions on the field" competition just outside the function room, so I thought to myself that it would be interesting to try and take photos of the girls on the stage and see what I learnt from the process. I learnt quite a bit: some things at the time and others after the event when processing the photos at home.

The first thing I learnt was that amateur models don't pose for the cameras.  The girls were maybe concentrating on not falling off the stage or trying to remember how models walk.  Too often I waited for the right shot that never came as the girls just swept past the point where they were supposed to stop.

Next, it's hard to get the whole girl in the photograph without becoming distant.  You have to be content with getting half of maybe two thirds of her in the frame.  This was certainly complicated by models who rarely stood in the same position on the stage, so it was difficult to frame a whole-body shot. This must be an important issue for fashion photographers who want to get both the hat and the shoes in the same shot.  Maybe it's a matter of what type of photograph you want, and I prefer portraiture to fashion. It certainly seemed that the facial expressions were important to me.  And pleasant expressions at that.

From this distance you do tend to notice the clothes more than the person.

Lesson - hats can make it difficult to capture the face.  It would have been good to use a flash, but I was standing back and using a zoom.

Lesson - bad luck with someone in the background.  In both this and the previous, the girls not yet on stage didn't have their modelling face in gear.

Lesson - expect to catch the blink. I seemed to have caught a lot of girls blinking.  I probably should have used rapid fire mode.

Here are some of the photos that turned out OK.

This is the girl that I think will win. She smiled at the crowd, she smiled at the judges, and most importantly, she smiled at the photographers.

 

Oh, and as for the horse racing.... Diamond Jay came 6th.

A weekend at Merimbula

Last weekend we had a trip down to Merimbula, which is about 3.5 hours drive away.  Merimbula is on the south coast of NSW just above Eden, near the border with Victoria.

We were going to drive down on the Friday, and then spend 2 nights there, but there was so much rain we decided to go on the Saturday instead.

So on Saturday, we drove down early and visited Mogo Zoo.  Unfortunately it was unbearably hot, about 36 degrees and 90% humidity. While we were walking around the sweat was running down our backs and also down our legs.  The weather seemed to suck all the energy from us.

We'll have to go to this zoo again, but perhaps in winter when it will be a lot more pleasant and the animals more active.  On this day most of them were hiding under trees and bushes,  trying to avoid the heat of the day.

That night we stayed at a great guest-house in Merimbula. Rated 5 stars.  Here was our view.

On the way in I saw a small pond or lake that offered some photo opportunities. So after unpacking our bags in our nicely air-conditioned room, I walked down to the lake. When I got there, there was a great scene of a few ducks getting ready to take flight, but when I took off the lens cap, the lens fogged up completely.  I realised that this was because I'd had my lenses out in the cold bedroom, and the lens canp insulated the lens from the heat outdoors, so when I took it off, it was like taking an icy cold can of beer outside on a hot day - the condensation started immediately.  So that photo never eventuated.  I had to wait about 10 minutes before the condensation evaporated again.

We were a bit disappointed at the races on Sunday where one horse came 3rd and the other 5th.

Spiders, spiders, everywhere ...

Over the past week or so we've been invaded by spiders.  Well, actually, by spiders and bull-ants.

I don't think I've ever seen so many spiderwebs.  Every morning when I go out back to check on the swimming pool, I either walk into one or just avoid one.  There's even been webs woven right across the swimming pool.

Normally spiders don't worry me too much, except the other night Matt and I watched a movie called "Ice Spiders" which basically involved giant spiders eating everybody at a ski resort.  That is, eating them after a) ripping their limbs off, or b) crushing their heads or c) paralysing them and wrapping them in a cocoon.

So every morning the sunlight catches webs on fences (like above), or in the roses, or just about anywhere.  I can't work out how one managed to spin a web right across the pool to a tree on the other side.

The bull-ants aren't as scary, but if we are sitting on the floor watching TV we sometimes see the inch-long ants exploring.  It's not too bad unless you see one about to bite your finger or something.

I got a new f1.8 lens the other day, so I've been playing around with it so see how well it performs.  I got it to allow me to take better indoor photos without a flash, but it seems to take nice sharp photos outside as well.

Stop Press:

I just went outside and another spider, or maybe the same one as previously, had strung a single strand across the width of the pool and was building a new web.  It moved so quickly it was hard to take a non-blurry photo in the evening light.  I guess that means that we'll have good weather tomorrow.

GPS shopping ... grrr

Today we went shopping for a new GPS for Karyn's mother.

It seems that most of the shops don't actually want to sell you a GPS.  There was either:

• nobody around to sell you one (various stores)
• when there was someone to serve you they were from the TV section and didn't know anything about GPSs (Dick Smith)
• a problem with their GPS display so they couldn't actually turn one on and demonstrate anything to you (David Jones)

Thank goodness for Harvey Norman.  They had staff who knew about GPSs and were capable of discussing their relative features, a display stand that let you play with the GPSs, and importantly, a post-Christmas sale that made a purchase attractive.  So of course we bought one from there.

Building fences

I had a week off over Christmas as my employer had a mandatory shutdown between Christmas and the New Year.  But did I just sit back and relax?  No.

Being the industrious person that I am, I helped my neighbour build a new fence between our properties.  Two and a half days in heatwave conditions constructing a new fence.

We ship-lapped the palings (ie attached 2 palings and then a third over the top covering the join, and screwed each covering paling with 6 screws.  So hopefully the fence will stay in good condition for the next 20 years.  A much better job than our other fences done by professional fencing companies - in my opinion.

So now our dogs don't threaten and bark at each other through the fence because they can't see through it.

It was also worth it to stop Karyn complaining that I was just sitting around the house doing nothing.  She didn't complain for the whole following week!

Girl talk ....

Di and Donna came over today for a Christmas drink or two.

We were sitting outside chatting, when the talk turned to shopping and the great bargains at the shops.  I think that Coco aptly demonstrated my mood.

Ok so far.

Oh no, they're talking about shopping.

My head is starting to hurt.  I'll just close my eyes for just a moment.

If I prop my head up maybe they'll think I'm still interested..

Don't talk to me about apprentices

This weekend we went to the races at Adaminaby to see Diamond Jay race.

While we weren't expecting her to win, we were quietly hopeful.  Because of our two recent wins we had a large weight penalty allocated by the handicappers, but we still thought that we were in with a chance.  To offset the extra weight we were using an apprentice that could claim a 3kg reduction.

The weather turned out to be great, which was a nice change from the previous weeks where it was wet or cold or both.

I should have mentioned that Adaminaby is one of those small country towns that has a race day once a year that is always great fun to attend.  The whole town turns up, I reckon.  Here are a few miscellaneous shots I took of the early races; being a smaller track meant that you are closer to the action, especially compared to other tracks where you can't get very close to the winning post itself.

 Our strategy for Diamond Jay's race was to stay at the back and run against the fence all the way until the final turn where we would run wider and race down the outside to the finishing line.

Here is a picture of the horses just after the start.  Ours is in the centre of the picture with the pink and dark blue check.  Can you see where he is racing?

Not against the rail, and not at the back.

You see, our rider was an apprentice, who despite being told what to do, decided to run his own race.  And this meant running the horse mid-field, and 3 horses wide,  All the way around the track. 

All the way around, the racecaller kept saying things like "Diamond Jay is working hard running 3 deep around the bend ..." "Diamond Jay is having a hard time of it overtaking the other horses running so wide ..." etc, until we heard "Diamond Jay is dropping back in the straight.."

That's why this guy has been added to our "don't use again" list.

After the race he said that the horse jumped from the barrier so quickly he was taken by surprise.  He then said that she was running so strongly that he didn't want to pull her back (like he was supposed to) because she would lose her head of steam (like she was supposed to).  He stayed 3 wide because there were other horses against the fence and he would have to drop back (like he was supposed to) to get to a position near the fence.

The big downside of apprentices - they don't listen, and if they do the either don't do as they're told or they can't.  Or maybe I'm being unfair to other apprentices.  But it's not the first time that an apprentice has messed things up for us badly.