25 January 2012

3/52 - White Space

So week three of the Let's Do 52 photography challenge has come and gone and here I am only just getting my photo up.  To be fair, I took it on Saturday, but have only just managed to find time to sit and edit (and see if I could snap one that I liked better - it's a constant issue... ;-))

The theme I chose this week (of the two available) was White Space, which means empty space, not necessarily coloured white and here is my contribution to the theme...


My big girl had a birthday party on the weekend, which left the small one and I to our own devices, so we headed over to Nanny and Poppop's for a swim.  On the way, I spied a big sign in the carpark of their local Bunnings store, announcing to the passing public that there was a bit of a fun weekend organised with a bouncy castle, baby animal farm and all the other stuff that gets the little ones all jumpy and excitable.

We quickly did a drive by to pick up Nanny and headed back to Bunnings, only to discover that the baby animal farm was scheduled for the following day, and the bouncy castle shenanigans weren't due to kick off for another hour...

Making the best of a less than ideal situation, we managed to scout out a face painter who had set up shop near the workshop area, so we jumped in line and waited our turn, only to be showered with gifts while we waited - a lolly bag and a t-shirt in the small girl's size proclaiming (truthfully or otherwise..) "My Dad's a Tradie".  Bonus!

Turns out that Lindy (ask for her by name ;-)) was the most awesome face painter in the known universe, and the resulting (politely requested) "rainbow butterfly" is what you can see in the picture above.  I positioned Soph in the stairwell of what seemed to be the staff room, judging by the handful of green-shirted folk that clambered past as I was snapping merrily away ;-)  A nice expanse of rustic white space was provided by the worn treads...

Just for fun, here is a progress pic...



..and another back in the cool shade of Nanny's back patio...


Next This week's choices of theme are Sparkle and Unexpected Perspective, and I may already have one under my belt for the second choice, will just have to see if I can manage one I like better... ;-)


15 January 2012

2/52 - Open

It's week two of the Let's Do 52 photography challenge and I'm still on track.  Can I get a WOOHOO?!!

I have to admit that I struggled with the themes on offer this week - Open or Responsibility - as I couldn't get my head around how I would photograph either of those.  Honestly, I think I'm over-thinking things a tad, but I was a bit chuffed when an opportunity presented itself thanks to a cousin, a loose tooth and an errant towel.

Here is my entry for this week, with the theme of "Open"...


This is my big girl, who, at the ripe old age of eight and three quarters, has just lost her first front tooth - her fifth in all, thereby opening up a significant gap in her smile ;-)  She's a bit of a late bloomer where all things toothy-peg are concerned. She didn't even get a tooth in her head until 16 months - so a visit from the tooth fairy is quite the event in our house considering that visits have been so few and far between to date.

The reference to the cousin and the towel form the rest of the story as to how the tooth was actually lost, and I'm rather glad that I was off at the markers with my sister-in-law when it all went down, to be honest...

We got home from the markets with a bunch of fresh markety goodness to make a yummy summer holidays dinner, and were met excitedly at the front door with a gap toothed grin and a story of how, after splashing in the paddling pool for a while in the afternoon, the four cousins got out to get ready for bath time and cousin Ruby flicked her beach towel out to hang it on the airer, clipping Hannah's tooth in the process and flicking it right out of her head!

My stomach flipped over more than once during the telling of the story, not to mention the photographic evidence that daddy took and delighted in showing me afterwards, which I won't be sharing here.  You're welcome.

So now my big girl is left with a single, super wobbly snaggle tooth at the top and does a passable impression of Nanny McPhee with it.  I suspect that one will be out in the next week or so as well, with any luck, minus the drama and butchery of the last...


06 January 2012

Let's do 52 - a photography challenge for the year

If you're a bit of a photographer/scrapbooker/memory maker yourself, you may have heard of such things as 365 Project or Project 365, where you take a photo a day and upload it to your blog, Facebook or do it just for the fun of the challenge.

Personally, I am a big fan of photography and love continuing to learn how to drive my Canon DSLR and tweak images to my liking in Photoshop, but considering that my posting frequency on this and my other blog has been struggling to reach monthly in recent times, I figured that a daily photography post fell ever so slightly on the side of over-ambitious.

Enter Annie Manning of Paint the Moon Photography - photographer extraordinaire and creator of some seriously amazing Photoshop actions.  Last year she started a project whereby, instead of daily, you take and post photos weekly - "Let's Do 52", she calls it - and it's much more my speed.

I didn't join in last year, but this year, I'm raring to go, so here we go with the first in what I plan will be a series of 52 weekly photography posts...

Each week there is a theme - a choice of two in fact - and this week there was Natural or Sharing to choose from.


This first installment features my big girl, who can frequently be found with her face in a book - be it sitting quietly or walking around the house bumping into things whilst doing so.  I figured it fit with the Natural theme, being that she is in her natural habitat :-)

I processed the above image with a Photoshop action called All Together Now from Annie's Picture Perfect Mega Set of actions.

Unintentionally, I have also sort of taken a pic using the second theme as well, in fact both of them combined even...


This was taken shortly after arriving home from VacSwim (vacation swimming lessons) so they are fresh from the post swimming shower with hair resembling birds' nests (natural?!) and each chowing down on a cheek from an enormous mango that we picked up from the new local markets by the box load (sharing?!)

I was already quite happy with the colour and light in this picture, so didn't edit it at all other than cropping it in a bit closer than the original pic.

So there you have it.  One week in to the New Year and I'm on track with my weekly challenge.  Woot!  If you want to join in, head over to Paint the Moon for all the details, to join the Flickr group and get your photography on for twenty-twelve!