Walkies

We had playgroup today and there was no sign of any playdough beside that which I made for Alex so I really don't know what the 'playdough' task on our program was all about.
Alex had a good time there though. He is walking everywhere! He could walk all the way across the hall but if he sits down he can't get up without something to pull up on so then he would have to crawl to the nearest wall/chair/person to get up again. That was fine until we went outside to play and things are a little wet after all the recent rain so he got quite muddy crawling between walks. He also picked the snapdragons and pansys whenever I wasn't looking. Well actually I was looking but I got fed up with fishing him out of the flower beds all the time.
He is walking so confidently now. There's no stopping him. I chased him around with the camera tonight and grabbed these snaps. He is so fast.
Here's some product shots too. My cards all packaged up ready for sale on the weekend and one of the big 20x40" prints on the dining room table. Still have to trim the right hand edge on that one though.

Super Mom

I am super Mom! I made playdough!
OK so it's easy and anyone can do it but it's the first time I've made playdough for Alex and I feel like Super Mom.
We have playgroup tomorrow and everyone has to take some playdough for the kids. Alex now has purple playdough and I have purple hands. I bet Alex just tries to eat it but at least it is edible I guess.
My prints came today and I'm thrilled with my big ones. All the small ones have now been trimmed ready to make cards and I need to work out how I'm going to mount the big ones for hanging.
These are the 2 storyboards I had printed at 20x40" high gloss.
They have come out nice and sharp with great colour. I can't see any loss of quality from enlarging them. Of course I didn't print them with my watermark across them, that's just an internet thing.

Busy day - good news!

No time to take any photos today but it was a good day!
Alex did quite a bit of walking today. Seems every time I turned around he was walking across the room (or falling down the stairs). There'll be no stopping him soon. He even showed off his walking to his Dad tonight.
Mom and then Dad and Bonnie came over today. Mom helped me with Alex while I was at the dentist and then the Dr's. Alex loved exploring everywhere we went and charmed everyone he met as usual.
I got my broken tooth fixed quickly and easily with out an anesthetic which was great. The needle is the only part that worries me about going to the dentist so I'll put up with just about anything to avoid an anesthetic. It was nice to leave there without my face numb and drooling too :)
Then we came home and cleaned for a bit before heading off to the Dr's for my blood results. It's all good news! My thyroid levels are in the normal range again so I don't have to go back on the meds and don't need another blood test for 3 months. Wooooohooooo! The Dr weighed me too and I lost 2 kilos between visits so I came home and weighed myself without clothes and I've lost nearly 8 kilos since I started dieting (2 months).
I'm feeling like things are nicely under control and all going well lately.
I'm expecting my latest photo order back from the lab in the morning and I'm excited to see how the prints turn out.
Here's a photo from a recent car shoot. I like the way this one turned out. We were heading into the car park to take photos but we were locked out so I jumped out and took this photo before he reversed out of there.

Another print order off to the lab

Spent tonight preparing photos for a print order again.
I've got some 6x4s on order to make cards to sell and a couple of 20x45" storyboard prints just because the lab has a special on 20x45" glossy and I couldn't resist the chance to see some of my work blown up that large.
I had a blood test today and Alex had his chicken pox vaccination. He didn't cry at all.
Tomorrow I'm off to the dentist to fix a broken tooth and the Dr's for the blood results.
I must remember to order some coffee beans tomorrow night.

What to do on a rainy day

OK here's the last of the photos from yesterday. Alex sat in this chair for ages just playing with the phone. He managed to play back all the answering machine messages, and delete them, and he kept dialing 666!
It's a shame he couldn't play outside.

Alex photos

I've finally finished going through the photos from yesterday at Mom and Dads. Here's a heap of photos of Alex. I know there's a lot and they aren't technically 'good' photos but I love them.
There's more to come later too.

Happy Birthday Jim

Happy Birthday Jim!
We celebrated your birthday with a roast lunch at Mom and Dads. We had a birthday cake for you and tried to teach Alex to blow out the candles but he thought it was easier just to grab at the flame.
We'll try and catch you on MSN later .

Spring flowers

It was raining pretty much all day today but I still managed to get some photos of the spring flowers. They were all droopy with water but the water drops added a nice effect.

Just playing

Just playing around.
I thought it would be fun to look back at the photos I was taking this time last year and post one here but I've burnt all the photos prior to the end of Sept 2005 off to DVD and I couldn't be bothered hunting down the DVDs. So I went back to 2004. I had a different camera then and haven't burnt off all those photos yet. I found a lovely photo of a pregnancy test stick. The weekend after fathers day 2004 was when I got my positive pregnancy test for Alex. In a way it was Alex's first photo. I remember I tested the week before and was disappointed not to be able to tell Graham he was going to be a dad on fathers day. The following weekend it was my brothers surprise 30th birthday party so he got the news he was going to be an Uncle for his birthday.
Not a good idea for me to share that photo here, my mother might get the wrong idea if she saw it without reading the explanation.
So I played with the one of Alex reading from other day. I think this effect kinda emphasizes that it was a snapshot.
The blue one is from a series of smoke photos I did. Yes it really is smoke, just recoloured.
The photos of Graham are stolen moments. He doesn't like me taking his photo. I have about as many photos of Graham as I have of myself. The only way I can get him to stay still for a photo for me is to tell him I need a model to test my light settings, and then he usually sits there with his eyes closed because he hates the flashes. If I'm lucky I get one like this, caught him in between reverse blinks. I like this photo. I did a grainy b/w conversion. Not sure which version I prefer so here's both.

Long update part 2

I got an large order of prints back from the lab on Tuesday and they all turned out darker than I expected which means my monitor is no longer calibrated correctly. So the photos I'm posting here, which look great on my monitor, may look too dark and even reddish to everyone else.
Last night was the monthly camera club competition night. The set subject was 'wildlife'. I wasn't very happy with my photos, none of them really stood out to me. Some of them were technically good but they didn't have that uniqueness I aim for or twist on the subject interpretation. I don't have a lot of opportunities to photograph wildlife so I couldn't reshoot them and I had to go with what I had. I did well though, 5 honours and 3 acceptances, and the judges comments were good. It was a big night with our best turn out this year. There were so many photos entered we couldn't display them all at once.
Next months subject is 'photojournalism' which will be a challenge.
Here's some of my winning photos from last night.