2 in 1

Well yesterdays HSMS was 'tweezers'.
'An instrument for picking up small objects. Find tweezers in your space today.'
So I got out my unset stones and my tweezers and took some photos last night when Alex went to bed but then I was too busy to upload them so I'm uploading them tonight along with todays HSMS which is Self Portrait Saturday.
I don't have the right sort of tweezers for picking up stones and I was so scared of scratching them but I can't resist an excuse to photograph my sparklies :)
This is a half carat irradiated blue which I intend to set one day when I stop spending my money on Alex and cameras. (or start making money with the camera).

Then I wanted to take a tweezer photo of the big stone that lives on my keyboard but it was too big for the tweezers.

So Graham came up with some tweezers that fit. (that's his hand)
So funny :)

Now for my SPS here's me showing what I normally do with my tweezers.

Yesterday my big photo order arrived with all the wedding photos so I spent most of last night sorting them. All the 6x4's are in an album, enlargements are all trimmed and flattened (they were shipped rolled), the digital files are on a cd in web res and print res and I also made a web page for the photos so they can show family and friends overseas. The only thing I forgot to do was burn the monogram I designed for their invitations to CD but I can do that bit later.
The big 20x30" metallic turned out beautiful but we couldn't work out how to wrap it for them without rolling it so Graham (feeling generous after his pay review) gave me permission to frame it. So today we went back to Ikea and picked up a nice big (and cheapish) frame. We also dropped off photos to Graham's Mom.
Alex loves Ikea so two trips in one week was a real treat. Here he is all dressed up ready to go out (except his shoes). He hasn't worn these trousers before because he doesn't have enough of a waist to keep them up but they are getting short on him so we made him wear braces. I thought he looked so handsome I had to take a photo :)
Actually he had a few admirers at the shops too.

Here's the finished photo all framed and ready to go and Alex waving bye bye.

and the bad news...
we got home, desperate for a coffee, started brewing and the group on the machine shattered. The group is the metal holder the portafilter (coffee holder) twists into. Not something you expect to break, it's all one piece of solid metal! I got out the paperwork and the machine is 3 years and 1 week old so no warranty. Hopefully we can get a new group for it. We emailed the company we purchased it from and I think there are a few importers in Melbourne who have parts for this model. Problem is we are suffering without our real coffee. I got out one of our old turkish coffee pots but it's not the same at all.

Krispy Kreme Kurious

Just a quick 'cause it's been a busy day and we were out tonight.
Todays HSMS is curious
'Eager to know or learn. Find 'curious' in your space today'
Naturally my first thought was killing the cat but I restrained myself.
My curious shot is from tonights outing.
We were invited to a special launch at Penrith Krispy Kreme for a new doughnut. Turns out it wasn't really a launch, more like a preview and we were the guinea pigs.
It's a choc glazed doughnut. Like the original glazed but with a chocolate glaze. The chocolate glaze doesn't taste like chocolate, it just tastes like icing sugar with a bit of cocoa. We got to try them fresh and hot and it really wasn't worth it. Not something I'd buy. They were too soft and sticky and pretty tasteless. Might be better a bit cooler when they've set a bit.
Alex wouldn't even taste his.
I didn't take the camera with me but when I saw everyone lined up at the window to watch the first of the new doughnuts being coated in chocolate I thought it would be a good shot for curious so I asked Graham to take these shots with his mobile phone. The colour/quality was pretty bad so I converted to B/W. Alex was standing on the wall so he could see :)

awwww give us a kiss

Todays HSMS is Kiss!
'AKA: Pucker up, swap spit, snog, tonsil tickling (tee hee).
A show of affection by means of mouth to mouth contact. Go on, give us a kiss!'

Well Alex was asleep most of the evening so there went my easy option. I wanted to get Alex blowing a kiss to the camera, and I really didn't want to kiss the cat, so I had to wait for Graham to come home. We had fun with this :) It was hard to get a kiss shot where we weren't laughing though.
We set up the tripod and used the self timer with the flash bounced off the ceiling.
This was my version, I planned on the lamp giving us some back light,

and this was his. Hehehe does that make it a MVHV?
He was dipping me and I was not feeling very secure.
I like the way he framed us with my painting.
Note mine is the one in focus :P

Today Alex and I went out with my parents. We took him to see the fountains at the Olympic park and then we went to Ikea. He didn't want to get too close to the fountains but he loved Ikea. He runs 'round the whole store 'reading' the labels, testing all the chairs, opening and shutting all the cupboards, pushing the buttons on the dummy TVs and turning off the staff computers! It was a big day out for him and hence he has been asleep all evening until now. He just woke up for dinner and will be back in bed soon.
I took the camera hoping to get some shots of Alex having fun with the water. As usual it's a hard choice when going out with Alex. Do I take all the camera gear and get stuck carrying around bits I probably wont use or do I travel light and end up missing the perfect shot because I didn't have the right gear with me?
I opted to travel light. One camera, one lens and one spare battery. Then I ended up wishing I had the 10mm lens with me, a tripod, a ND filter and my infrared filter. These locations would make for some stunning portraits for anyone who wanted something a little funky and colourful. I might have to go back there with a willing model.
As for todays effort, well my camera has a problem. Actually I've kinda known it does for a few weeks now but as I mostly shoot manual I've been able to work around it. It's exposure is way off! If I use auto exposure it way overexposes with the occasion way underexposure. On manual it still behaves strangely but I can work around it most of the time. Problem is for chasing a toddler around between sun and shade I don't have time to adjust manually and can't reshoot the shot when I adjust the settings. So today I wanted to use P mode for shooting Alex but it just wouldn't work. For example on P it would use 1/125 and completely blow the shot, where as for the same shot on manual I'd have to use 1/1250 to get the correct exposure.
So I know my camera will have to go off for repair but I don't want to be without it for any length of time :(
The old 10D is still working but it's so slow, I prefer to use the 20D. Actually I'd like to get the 40D I've been hanging out for and send the 10 and 20 both off for a service.
I'll wait and see if I can persuade Graham that the 40D would make a good anniversary pressy before I do anything about the 20D. Never know what a few weeks hinting will get me.
Though some wood for the new deck would be a more sensible gift for us to buy each other, especially for our 5th anniversary.
Anyway here's some photos from today, the ones that did work.

That's my Dad taking photos with his much more reliable Fuji.

This was as close as Alex would get to the water.

Does anyone else think it looks like they are practicing their dance moves here?


This is the walk over the old brick pits. It's huge and Alex did the whole walk!

Print

Lately it seems like the HSMS prompts are stalking me. They are fitting so well with what I'm doing each day :)
Todays prompt is Print.
'To produce in large quantities by mechanical process. Find 'print' in your space today.'
Today my latest print order was delivered so I've been busy sorting prints.
Here's a photo of print sorting in progress.
This one was only a small order of 77 prints. I was a bit concerned that the colours would be off. My monitor is still calibrated but since I installed CS3 my I can't get the colours to match on my printer. So I was worried that I'd have the same problem with photos from the lab.
Thankfully the colours are great so I've just sent off another order for 207 prints including 6 20x30" metallics. Can't wait to see how they turn out :)

Happy Birthday cake all 'round

It's my brothers birthday and the HSMS word of the day is cake so I had a good excuse to eat cake :)
Happy Birthday Jim!
Let's hope you read this, leave me a comment if you do so I know, and when are you going to update your blog?
We had the out-laws and the newlyweds over to celebrate your birthday. We had a cookies and cream cheesecake with 3 candles. Alex blew out the candles for you and the rest of us ate the cake. Graham had to eat the piece Alex blew on, he hasn't got the hang of blowing without dribbling yet :)
Hope you have a great birthday, we miss you!

Show off!

Phew what a busy day!
Cleaning all morning, some washing even though it rained, in-laws over in the afternoon and then friends over this evening. All this with an excitable 2yo running riot. He loves having visitors but gets a bit silly when he is tired (like me). Multiple coffees and cake later, (so much for the diet today), everyone has gone, Jnr is asleep and I have a splitting headache (and the washing isn't finished).
The best thing about today is I finally got to show R&R the photos I took at their wedding last month. I made them a DVD slideshow. They loved the photos! I am so happy :) I wanted to be able to give them some beautiful photos even though I wasn't the official photographer. They haven't seen their official photos yet which I'm a little upset about. I didn't want to undermine the photographer (grooms sister) by jumping in with my photos first. My photos are supposed to be just candid supplements to her photos so I wanted her to have the glory of showing them first. Oh well they were so happy to see some photos that I'm glad I didn't wait any longer.
Good news is now they have seen the photos I have permission to show people and it's perfect timing for 'Show of Sunday' as HSMS. So instead of new photos today I get to show off my favourite wedding photos from last month :)
Now I'm off to order some prints for them. I have a magnificent 20x30" metallic print in mind as a gift for them.
Busy busy busy!

This first one is my most favourite (for now).

Self Portrait Saturday - I tried

Ok today is Self Portrait Saturday at HSMS.
So I had this idea that I could use the self portrait Saturdays to track my weight loss and help me stick to the diet. I thought I'd do my weigh-in on Saturday mornings and photograph myself on the scales.
Stupid idea!
Besides the tricky angle and the bad lighting in the bathroom, there's the fact that the read out on our scales flashes when it's reached it's figure. So no matter how I tried to time it I always ended up shooting between flashes and getting a blank number. Add to that the fact that I couldn't take the shot without the weight of the camera (and flash) being recorded. The camera with 580ex is surprisingly heavy. Really was a silly idea. I suppose I could do it with a tripod, and a long exposure would get the numbers as they flashed, but it was a very unattractive look anyway. I forgot that my legs don't match and my foot is ugly.
I persisted anyway and tried a compact mirror over the readout instead, to get my face in the shot. Now that idea could work, with a bit more thought, but I really don't think I'll bother trying this again.
So here is my self portrait for Saturday and I'm sorry I wont do this again.
If I come up with something better later I post again but as it's a rainy miserable day I don't think I can be bothered. Maybe more coffee will help.