Backyard Milkyway

"And it's something quite peculiar,

Something that's shimmering and white...

Leaves you here, despite your destination,

Under the Milky Way tonight"

Playing around in the backyard tonight, before the moon came up.
One of the wonderful things about the southern hemisphere - so much less light! (although you can see the light from Toowoomba in the bottom right of the sky).
Anyway, a pleasant experiment.

Xan and the Storm

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

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!

Too many Japanese cartoons

Xan has been watching too many Japanese cartoons...
this is how he has started to look.....

He is an oversized pair of boots away from being part of an elite robot controlling fighting squad destined to save the world in a quasi spiritual battle!

Down side of an older car...

So, there are all these things you take for granted when you have them....
and when you make a decision to go back to an older model, they are no longer there....

In this case, in every car I have owned for the last 2 decades I have had a little thing that tells me "distance to empty".  I no longer have that - and it turns out that I use that a lot...

My car decided to stop working on the highway on the way home.
I pulled off to the side, called Ruth, who soon arrived, (laughing the whole way) with a fuel can.

Luckily I had a camera to record the whole experience...

...and sometimes you cannot get it right...

The boys had a sick day yesterday... and I was not sure if I was well or not... so I used it as an excuse to take a couple of photos at training instead of doing any real work.

So I wander in with three quarters of a metric tonne of gear (two flashes, a couple of flash stands - even an umbrella) and set up to take some photos of one of the black belts while he trains for his second dan grading....

Yeah...

did not work so well.

The question now is... after such and incredibly spectacular failure... will I be brave enough to ask people if I can do it again?

Misty Morning

Misty morning the other day....  all very pretty...
I managed to capture something that nearly looks like it felt...

Have I mentioned how cold it is?

Down here in the real South... it is cold....
                a few days it has been very cold.

So, no photos of beach volley ball games as the sun goes down or wandering around wearing very little, ready for a swim....

In fact even pouring boiling water for a cup of tea or coffee is hard.....

Fun and Stupidity.....

We had a public holiday for the Toowoomba Show.... so we decided to go for a bush walk...

The boys and a friend, Ruth and I went to Crows Nest National Park, about half an hour from where we live.  Lots of fun scrambling over huge rocks and playing with waterfalls etc.

But it ended in another lesson for me about not being invincible....

Xander was on one side of the creek, I was on the other.  I called out that we were going to have a race back to Ruth, and we started....  Xan sensibly working his way across the rocks on his side... me doing big jumps onto the sides of boulders to start to get back across....
On one of my last jumps... a tiny little water crossing, that was little more than a step, I did something wrong (I think it was just forgetting that knees bend when I was working out where to land)...  I rapidly became the proud owner of a gash at the top of my calf, nearly an inch deep....  somehow it missed anything important.  Out came the first aid kit and some quick Veterinary attention and a little woosyness (on my part of course) later I was hobbling back to the car.    When Ruth was dressing it later (it took some convincing for her not to muzzle me while she was working), she said there was a deficit, so it would not be able to be stitched - which as far as I can work out is Vet/Medical speak for - you left a lump of you on the rock...

It was said later that the deficit was not in my leg, but in my head.
Right now I probably agree.

Back to school...

The beginning of the Australian school year... and the boys are headed back to school....

Impressive Mountains Yesterday.....

the view from our front door....

there aren't many reasons to live anywhere else!!!

more boy shots

In the vacant lot beside our place, looking out over the valley....
Must say, it is all very lovely.
You understand I mean the view... not the boys.

Arrogant and Presumptuous Photography Portrait.

As it turns out, I am going to be a lecturer for the 2012 Photographic Society of Queensland Conference.  Giving a talk about something that is far too complicated for me to get my head around, so I am hoping my confusion will come across as "arty"....
As part of the program (to populate the fairly sparse website above among other things), I had to submit a portrait of myself for the program. so I got the boys to help me take one this afternoon....

(There was no way in the world I was going to put a photo of me with a fuzzy lip up there!!)

I think I look a little Arrogant and Presumptuous (A&P).... but I have been (deservedly) accused of being A&P before - so it is probably fairly accurate.



Photogeek stuff:  Taken out the front of our house, into the low sun by Xander while Zak stood off to my right on a box pointing the flash down at me from just outside the frame.  A tiny bit of desaturation and vignetting in photoshop...

Swimming Carnival

Now that the good warm weather is here - the school swimming carnival was held with 3 days to go in the school year...
The boys did really well (they have done spectacularly in so many things lately) and are both on the school swim team.

We will not talk about the swim suit malfunction or anything else I think....

Mo-gress

I have started covering my face while I am sitting at traffic lights.
My top lip has its own pet slug....
You really have to be a certain type of person to appreciate this is truly a special kinda look.

BTW - lit using my Ipad as a light source, little bit from the other monitors...  I still have serious issues with MBOCS!

Very COLD

For my birthday I got a waterproof camera.... it is going to be all sorts of fun...

but because I could not wait to go to the beach with it, I got the boys to throw buckets of water over me.

I should have thought a little harder than this about the consequences about being soaked in cold water in the Highfields wind at 5 in the evening, but I am rarely accused of over thinking things!!

jumping fun this afternoon!

A flash and a retaining wall at home.... what more could you want for the afternoon!!

Boy's costumes.

Ruth made costumes for the boys based on Deltora and Beast Quest Characters for the book week free dress day tomorrow.

I think they all worked out pretty gosh darn well.

Evanescence and night time...

not necessarily a good mix.... but nonetheless I went for a little night walk with my camera and my iphone...

I think I could have made it worse if I used Snow Patrol.....
I will need to experiment with that....

The night has a very bright moon... so I thought I would go for a walk and experiment with the camera on some long exposures... I learnt a thing or two.

Playing on the front lawn.

The boys and me playing in the front yard...

when doing stuff like this I am sure we should be wearing appropriate super suits or something....

something that stands out (cause playing in the front yard lying on the ground with a camera and a huge flash does not stand out enough...)... maybe a costume in a bright pink or something?