Flashback

A few older photos.
Ruth on the New Zealand Trip at Lake Tekapo, and the Church of the Good Shepard there.  Both playing with a flash.

And a photo of Zak from earlier this year.  He has grown up so much since then!

All the photos were grabbed from older shots because the topic of the month for Toowoomba Photographic Society is "Use of flash".

Carnival of flowers

Toowoomba Carnival of Flowers this weekend.
Toowoomba really is a beautiful place to live and the Carnival is a bit of a celebration of that.

Not that the photos here have too many flowers in them... mostly just stuff....

Hiding from myself

One I have been meaning to do for a while...
The topic for the photography competition this month at TPS is "Selfie"... so I thought, why not?!


Photogeeking:  This photo took several years of planning... 4 or 5 years ago, I started developing a clone of myself (he is the one in the red shirt)...  he is not much good for most things, but was useful for this.  He sees things fairly simply and spends a lot of time cranky, so convincing him to do this was not hard.  A flash through an umbrella was used for the blue me... a direct flash for the red me, with another one filling in some of the detail.

Clan of the Cave Bear

Well, it looks like a scene from one of the books to me anyway!.

Lake Tepako

There are  couple of nasty spots on my camera sensor that I will need to clean up when I work on the photos....

Kayaking

Some friends of ours came out to Cooby Dam with us for a bit of kayaking....
Here are the boys heading across the dam.

Good fun, but I will remember to put sunscreen on my shins next time!
Walking around the streets in shorts while having bright red lower legs.... not such a good look!.

The Doctor

Near where we live there is (believe it or not) a Tardis!
The people who own it were kind enough to let us take a few photos with it this afternoon....

For a huge Doctor Who fan, this was a huge thing!

Photo Geeking:

Bright sunlight in the background.. still just before setting.  2 flashes, one held by my very own voice activated light stand, the other on the ground to the left of the shots.  Shutter speed high to darken the background.

The shot straight out of the camera is below... along with one showing a little more like what the scene looked like in real life... (along with the voice activated light stand!)

Chaos tamed by averaging...

The view from the window in my hotel.
It is a 6 way intersection where the lights seemingly change in specific sequence to cause maximum carnage and confusion.

Luckily everyone who uses the intersection follows all the road rules exactly, so there are never any issues!


I also took some time lapses that worked pretty well...
For how I did it... it involved a camera and some careful use of straps.

Social Documentary

Topic for the Toowoomba Photographic Society this month is social documentary...
no prize for guessing what country I would be drawing my photos from...

Very serious old lady overseeing her shop in Xian

On our way into Avatar Mountain...

Gentleman resting while digging the trenches for the new subway in Changsha

A bit of serious weather

Huge number of police around because there was a Party meeting in Miluo.  I could feel the increased security and safety in my bones!

Motion Sickness

The moon was huge this evening.  Sitting just above the houses and the tree line.
If I watched hard enough, I thought I could see it moving.

Not good.

If you get motion sick from the movement of the planet, there is no where to get off to regain your composure.

Walking around Miluo

I need an exit.

I am reading "The Windup Bird Chronicle" at the moment..... maybe that is why the photo looks like this.....

Probably just a Matrix reference.

Oops.....

Chinese BBQ

We set up a makeshift BBQ in the street over the weekend... all went very well... and very tasty.

One particular gentleman decided he wanted to stop and watch - which he did for a long time.  It was certainly long enough for me to walk up to him and take a photo anyway!

The setup is shown below... well.  missing me and with the camera in one hand and the flash in the other right up close to him!

Dinner time

Great dinner....

A million and one hairdressers

Here in Miluo, there are hairdressers everywhere...
Here is one of them...

Xan and the Storm

Incoming storm when I was home.  Taken between Christmas and New Year.

Windows to the soul

Filed under:  things you do when you are bored in your hotel room with 2 flashes, a camera and photoshop.

Yesterday's morning activities...

Here in Miluo,
out the back of my hotel...
after spending some time ferretting around randomly with my camera and flash...  I worked up the courage to ask the guy I wanted to photograph if I could shoot him while he was working....

He had no problems with it.... and this was the result.  He was shovelling coal from a big pile outside to a smaller pile inside and then from that pile into the boiler that was giving me hot water in my hotel - so I definitely appreciated his efforts!

Back home and Christmas lights

The view from my front door just after sunset....
Through the Christmas lights....

We are joining in with the neighbourhood lighting just a little more each year...  It all looks very festive!