Nov 23, 2009

Fashionista

An aspect of the portfolio which required attention was Fashion stroke Glamour. Glamour that is as in pretty ladies with their clothes on rather than any other less wholesome styles of tography those of you from the seventies might be making connections to.

Young Stephanie my fellow student, when overhearing my/our desire to take pictures of the abovementioned pretty young ladies, made an introduction to a pretty young lady of her acquaintance by the name of Lucy who is also, as a bonus, fashionable.

So we (we being trusty Will and I) took her to an underground car park and Will helped me to take nice pictures by pointing flashing lights in her general direction and then he took some nice pictures of her too.

Busy Busy Busy

Attack of the Killer Literature Remiss have I been in bloggage, for I have been a busy bee.

The course ends in a not long period of time, and it is time to finish assignments, put together pages for portfolios, take photographs, complete notes.

Of the twelve that started it seems that three or four may complete and hand in the work at the end of the year. Of those who knows how many I will pass.

That is my intention so I am trying to work hard to achieve that thing.

Nov 15, 2009

Reluctant

Reluctant "We're going to go and walk the dogs so go and put some shoes on"
"I want to go to the brook"
"Well last time Matilda ran away and went and stole some bread, so not today"
"Well I don't want to go to the forest"
"Where would you like to go then"
"How about the beach"
"The tides are wrong"
"The beach"
"Nudgee Beach?"
"No, Bribie Island"
"That's too far"
"It's not fair"
..... driving.....
"Where are we"
"Samford Forest"
"This isn't the usual forest place"
"No it isn't"
"Why not?"
"I thought we could go somewhere different"
"Well I want to go to the usual forest place"
... sound of blood boiling

Nov 14, 2009

iPod

iKon I took the opportunity of depriving Nicole of her iPod, which she professes undying love for, for a day so that I could make photographs of it on the light table at college for assignments and portfolio.

The tricky thing was to use aperture to control the flash exposure and shutter speed to control the exposure of the LCD display.

Nov 9, 2009

At Last - A Hat She'll Wear

Bushrangers In fact it's a job to get her to take it off....

On Saturday she wore it while we walked around the forest. A different circuit but she walked around it without complaint. Well I say without complaint of course I mean she complained bitterly all the way around. Well I say bitterly I really mean just slightly. Just enough to be polite.

On Sunday she wore it while we watched telly. She wore it on the way to the swimming pool. She couldn't wear it while swimming. Though if she could've, she would've.

She wore it while I mowed the lawn. She wore it while we put together jigsaws.

She never used to wear hats, in fact she objected pretty strongly to them. But I suppose those hats weren't as, um, rakishly stylish as the school hat.

The hat, by the way, fits Nicole. Not that there's any competition for it.

The Grains of Time

We Are All Individuals are flowing through my fingers.

Eloise and Nicole went on Friday to the costume shop, erm school uniform shop.

They came back with a list of items which Eloise can recite but which I cannot recall, owing to the fact that I was quite blown away to see her drowned in her school dress and hat.

The dress was worn to nursery. The hat was worn to nursery. The hat has been worn ever since. It is a symbol of her ascendancy to the next stage of achievement. She is very proud indeed, and very excited about going to school.

She is ready. As we keep saying though, is school ready for her?

Nov 7, 2009

A Remarkable Thing

The Geometry Of Weather Eloise wanted to go to Bribie Island on Thursday.

As there was a storm forecast, we readily agreed. After all, not to labour the point or anything, we do like to go to the beach when it's forecast to rain.

It was sunny when we got there and we set off up the beach. The skies were clear apart from some smoke on the hills in the distance.

Our first interesting moment was when some woman got miffed with Matilda saying she doesn't like dogs. Erm, what are you doing on a dog beach then...?

We walked up the beach, well ambled. Eloise wrote her name in the sand. The tide was going out.

Then I spotted a dolphin's fin about thirty metres out to see. We cooed and aahhhed and decided to go and have a look.

As we watched it became clear that there were several fins out there.

And then one swam right up to the beach, almost leaving the water and beating the sand in the shallow water with its tail. It happened all of a sudden then it came round and had another go.

"It's like David Attenborough!" gasped Nicole as I drew nearer with my camera.

"It's scary!" said Eloise. "Don't go into the water!"

Nicole's feet were irresistably drawn in though and the dolphins made a measured retreat.

She got quite close the next time, wading out on a shallow sandbar as the tide went out and a dolphin rolled around in the water for her a little.

"I just wanted to be near one" she said. I translate that as "I wanted to grab a dorsal fin and be pulled shrieking through the water like on the telly."

When we came to our senses the sky was darkening over the water.

Minus bucket and spade, Eloise and I contented myself with earthworks, bridges and tunnels whilst Nicole nursed her allergic reaction from that morning's injection.

The storm was loud back in Brisbane, but unproductive in terms of rain. South Brisbane got hailed on though with hailstones the size of golf balls, so I am told. We just got thunder that made the whole house shake.

Nov 2, 2009

Soldiering On

Sea Dogs I took the dogs to Bribie Island on Friday. There were showers in Brisbane so the beach seemed the obvious choice.

It turned out to be quite sunny up there. Which was nice. We walked up the beach for a few clicks (that's thriller-speak for ks, which is an abbreviation for km, which is in turn an abbreviation for kilometres) until we came across an icky tidal pool that looked like it was full of paint of some description, the water being coloured weird purple and green in a very lurid and wholly unslightly way.

Around this tidal pool were strange mirage-like shifting blotches of darkness, like a swirling rorschasch of inky somethingness. I wandered tentatively over to discover squads, nay platoons, nay legions, I say whole armies of soldier crabs scuttling around on the sand.

Upon hearing my footfalls they scuttled around, organising themselves into some kind of emergent formation before digging into the sand and disappearing.

I lay on my belly with my camera for a while hoping they'd be daft enough or get bored enough to come out to play. I kept an eye on one little crab in particular, who poked a little eye out of his little pile of sand from time to time, spotted me, and then climbed back into his refuge.

They didn't come out to play again.

Nov 1, 2009

Three Wheeling

Three Wheeling Managed to coax her onto the bike for a bit more practice.

She's finally rumbled that if you go fast, or at least keep pedaling, the bike is more likely to stay upright.

And that, if you lean far enough over to the right, the bike isn't as likely to fall over.

Small steps.