More photography

I had a chance to do some more photography today.

Firstly, I went back to the Botanic Gardens where I photographed yesterday.  After looking at the photos on the computer last night, I realised that some of the photos showed too much light reflection off the leaves, so today I went back and took some more using a polarizing filter.  Unfortunately, even though the filter was effective, the afternoon sun didn't provide the same "fresh" green as I captured yesterday morning.  Oh well, I learn something each time.

Later on, I drove up to the top of Black Mountain to see what was available for picture-taking.  The Botanic Gardens are at the base of Black Mountain, so this involved driving out of the Gardens, turning right, driving about 100m, then turning onto the road that goes to the top of the mountain.

I didn't want to catch the lift to the observation deck as I expect to do that in a few days time when Fay's friend arrives to visit for a few days.  So I was content to just wander around and snap a few shots.

This was taken from a lookout, overlooking Lake Burley Griffin.  The Captain Cook water jet is to the left of the Commonwealth Avenue bridge.

This is the Telstra Tower at the top of Black Mountain.  The sky looks really blue because I was using a circular polarizing filter.

Here is a close-up of the tower, standing just outside the entrance at its base.

Sammy

My mother-in-law's new puppy has started to settle down and hopefully knows not to chew the carpet anymore.  She's also settled on the name "Sammy" after downloading pages of poodle names off the Internet.

I've always found it difficult to take pictures of black poodles because the pictures always seem to make them look like black blobs with no discernible features.  A flash only make them look worse because of the reflection off their coat.  Here is the best picture that I've taken so far.

I'll try photographing him again over the next few days to see how I can take better photographs.

Today I went to the Botanic Gardens to practice taking photos in dappled light.  I find this the hardest type of lighting, but one that I have to deal with a lot.

We saw Avatar 3D

Tonight Matt and I went to see the new movie "Avatar".

Fabulous.

We saw the 3D version, and after seeing this, I really wouldn't want to see the conventional 2D version of it because the experience would be diminished so much.

Christmas Day

Well, Christmas Day has started off differently from most.

4am:  Matthew was working last night and went out for drinks afterwoods.  He got home around 4am with a drunk mate in tow who needed somewhere to sleep.  So at 4am Matthew is organising a mattress and sleeping bag for him.  I was more concerned about his friend being sick during the night, but everything was ok.  Karyn got them up at 8am because we thought that Joel's parents would be wanting him home for Christmas morning.

9am:  Despite that fact that we are in the middle of a drought and that we've been suffering from 35 degree heat for the past few days, today we wake up to rain and 23 degree temperature.  We had been invited to a friend's house for Christmas dinner that was being held outside with lots of people invited.  Fortunately we had decided to have our lunch here first so we don't have to worry about the rain ruining our plans.

Matthew also left it to 4am to wrap his presents.  As you can see from what he handed me.  And yes, this is before I tried to open it.

Matthew just had enough energy to open his presents.  He then went back to bed.

We got to wear our matching Hawaiian outfits (her suggestion - not mine). Until Karyn spilt some beetroot dip down her dress.

Fay's new puppy that she bought as a Christmas present to herself.  Poor thing.










11:30am:  I've just had to stand in the rain to put the leg of pork in the barbeque.  Fortunately it's got a lid.

12:30pm:  It's harder than normal to get the barbeque to the right temperature.  I think the constant rain falling on the lid is causing it to lose heat.  I've just added a chicken to the barbeque.

1:30pm.  My mother-in-law's dog just chewed a hole in our carpet.

2:00pm.  Lunch.  I can't drink because we have to go to Penny's this afternoon and, as usual, I am the "designated driver".  This year I tried hard to avoid overeating.  I succeeded.  I had some of everything and not too much of anything.  The Christmas pudding was fantastic:  you can never add too much brandy.

4pm.  Off to Penny's.  Fay is having a nanna-nap instead.  Matt is playing World of Warcraft on his new quad-core, twin-screen computer - it would take the end of the world to get him off it.

6pm.  Back from Penny's.  Karyn and Penny were having champagne with raspberry liqueur in it. As the designated driver, I stuck to Pepsi Max.

6:30pm.  Dog has chewed a second hole in carpet.   May have fatal accident in the morning.

7:30pm.  Karyn & Fay were yawning and went to bed.

1:00am.  I went to bed.

3am.  Karyn went downstairs and told Matthew to get off computer and go to bed.

The return of the mother-in-law

Christmas is upon us and so is my mother-in-law.

Unfortunately the office where I work is closed for the coming week.

Matt's Year 12 Formal

The last event of the school calendar was the Year 12 formal.

Matt spent the day helping organise the after-formal party.  Their previous plans had fallen through because the venue they had booked couldn't cope with some of the guests being under the 18 year old drinking age.  Karyn said he got home, had a quick shower, got partially dressed, and raced out the door.

He said the formal was "no big deal", and he was going with a group of his mates.

I turned up, camera on hand, to see him arrive.

Here is Matthew with "his mates".

Her name is Melanie.

A win at Moruya

We went to the races at Moruya (on the NSW South Coast) the other day.  We decided to make it an all-day trip because Moruya is about 2 1/2 hours away.

We had Kevin Sweeney riding him, which was good; we have a lot of faith in him.  We don't have to give him riding instructions because we can leave it to him to find his way between or around the opposition, and he knows better than us how the other jockeys are likely to perform on the day.

Diamond Jay was last for most of the race, and then when they reached the straight, she just powered past the opposition.  It always makes the trip home more enjoyable with a trophy in your hand.

The downside of a win is the amount of time Karyn likes to spend celebrating in the bar afterwards.

Everyone else had left until it was just us, the bartender, and the police wondering why there were still people at the track.

Catherine's Year 12 Formal

The daughter of a friend of ours was having her Year 12 formal, and I offered to come over and take some photos.

I really had ulterior motives.  You see when I did a photography course a few years ago, we did a module on portraits.  Now to do take a portrait, you need a subject.  In my house, both Karyn and Matthew refuse to have their photos taken normally, so getting them to sit for a portrait shot was impossible. I ended up having to use one of our dogs for my portrait photo.

Catherine is extremely photogenic, so she agreed to pose for some shots before going to her Formal.  I took lots so that I will have plenty of material to practice my Photoshop skills in the coming year.  I learnt a lot from the process, including how difficult it can be to get a good picture during a social occasion with people all around, the problems of taking photos in the very late afternoon, the difficulty of finding a nice background, and how you can't trust some photo printing places to accurately print the right colours.

Anyway, it was nice of her to give me the opportunity to practice.

The things that parents have to do..

"Coasties" came to an end this week, with Matthew due to leave the coast at 6am on Tuesday for the drive back to Canberra.   Everyone had to be back by Tuesday to return their textbooks and to check their term scores.  It is about a 3 hour drive from Canberra to where they were staying.

Matthew rang in at about 7pm to say that one of the boys had cut his hand and it had turned septic,  The local medical centre said that they had to return immediately to get it operated on in Canberra,  so they were leaving in a short while.

We expected him about 10pm, so I went to a friend's house to see some of their holiday snaps.

At about 9pm I got a phonecall from Matt saying that their car had broken down and they were hoping to get it towed.  About 9:15pm I got another call saying that they wouldn't tow the car anywhere where they could get accommodation or transport, and would I mind coming and getting them?

So at 9:30pm I drove to Ulladulla to get them.  I got there at around 1am.  It was a stressful drive because of the kangaroos jumping across the road in the dark.  You just get no warning - you just see this big 6 foot shape leap across the front of your car.  There is no street lighting on the roads, and about half the trip is on winding mountain roads in the dark where there isn't even moonlight.

So I got there and found them parked at a closed service station looking rather forlorn.  They transferred a mountain of luggage into my car and we took off.  First stop was to find some coffee for me.

So we stopped at Bateman's Bay for coffee and then headed home.

You know if I close my eyes I can still see the long lines of reflectors stretching into the distance.

So we finally got home at around 4am after dropping the other kids off first.

If I remember correctly, today Matt has to:

• go to school to return his text books
• work at the restaurant over lunch
• go to the Uni of Canberra for an information session
• work at the restaurant in the evening.

I'm so glad he got 4 hours sleep.