Halloween costumes and personalities....

Halloween parties mean costumes.

Izak went as two different things...

Jason from Friday 13th...
and a butch fairy.

Xander of course was very different and went as a very subtle, and recently fed, vampire.

More hair

Zak's hair is the gift that keeps on giving...
Originally we were going for the look of a troll doll,
but it warped into this high fashion shot!

.....and speaking of 80s.

This is what happens when you go an entire Summer Holidays without getting a hair cut....

We managed to get this shorn off before school started again, but it still looks pretty unruly.

Only from vacations?

It seems that I am only taking photos on vacations at the moment....
Very poor showing.

With that in mind we recently spent a week visiting the Great Barrier Reef off Cairns.


Xan and Zak during a snorkeling trip, heading down to check out a clam on the ocean floor:

I am not in any way a marine biologist, but from my recollections when I was diving on the reef last... there are some serious problems there.  The colour of coral is so much more subdued that what it used to be.  When Ruth and I were there last, the fish were hard to spot, because there was so much colour around.  Now they show up vivid and bright in their dull surroundings...

We got to have a good look around, as well as the snorkeling, we had a couple of scuba dives as well.
Here are Ruth and Zak in a sea of bubbles of my rapidly consumed air!

Portal Christmas

Zak and I made some portal decorations.
Santa coming in through the chimney has always been a little fishy to me.... especially given that I have never lived in a house with a chimney.
A portal gun makes much more sense...
One portal on the front door, one near the tree....

Testing after we made them.... 

Tasmania Trip!

First couple of weeks of the school holidays we spent down in Tasmania, touring around....

I am sure that should mean I will have some photos to put up on the blog...

Here are the boys in a random place in Tasmania.

Who do you capture?

When you take a portrait, whose personality are you capturing?

Our 12 Year old....

Continuing on from the Zaklander post.
The benefits of lots and lots of swimming combined with some genetics I suppose.

Zaklander

I asked Zak to help me with another photo....
but of course it was impossible to get the photo I wanted before he threw in a Zaklander, "Blue Steel".

Game Controller

The boys

Scouting for locations to shoot my Niece's formal, practicing with the boys.

Evenly Matched.

Izak came up with this as something he thought was a good idea....
So here it is!

My Young Men.

First day of school last week.

Been a good school year.

Last night we had Zak's graduation from Primary School.

He managed to get the Arts award (tied with a very worthy "opponent"), and the Dux for the year.

That combined with his sports award for.... wait for it..... Chess(!), and his winning of his year in the Drama competition, all adds up to being a good result for the efforts he put in this year.

Between that and Xan getting an academic award along with his swimming age champion...  I think we can chalk up the 2014 school year as a good one!

Well done boys.  We are proud of you.

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....

Found: Invisible Man photograph.

Going through a box of old photos that I found... and happened to come across this interesting one, the back has a signature something like "H.G.Wells"... I think that what other people considered to be a work of fiction, was more of a biography!

It was book week last week, so given that Zak has been doing a lot of classic science fiction lately, he decided on the invisible man.  This was the result.


Photogeeking:  4 exposures.  2 flashes.  One giving light to the room, the other lighting from the stove.  One exposure for the background, one for Zak, one for the saucepan (with the handle) and a last, unlit one for the flame of the gas burner... put together in photoshop with a Nik plugin to make it look like a wetplate camera.

Weekend of Chess

Zak was invited to compete in the Toowoomba Invitational Chess Tournament over the weekend.
Games got increasingly tougher as he went through, but he finished in a very respectable position.
Very proud of him!

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!.

Finished Primary School

Xan has finished primary school..

He is definitely growing up...

 Zak and Boppa looking on at the graduation...

Life is not a movie

Izak wrote a play this year, that he performed with one of his class mates….

One of the more memorable parts of it

I:  Oh look…. a time portal!!

H:  How do you know it is a time portal?

I:  Well, cause it says so in the script!

But from what I have heard, life in not a movie…. Which unfortunately means we do not get scripts to work out what is going on.

As far as I can work out… if it were a movie, there would need to be more work on the sets!

 

If it was a movie… . I would hope it was something exciting!  Something like a spy movie where you get to paraglide over cities and stuff...

 

It isn't one... cause there are complicated bits, and parts with no scripts.
There are plot twists that make no sense - bits that are tragic or frustrating with no payoff.  There are things that seem important that are introduced to the story, but go no where..

Things that make good stories, are often terrible, confusing or painful to live through.
(but just cause something was terrible, confusing or painful does not necessarily make it a good story!)
People do not come in only 2 dimensions, they come in 3 (or many many more) and cannot be easily read.  (Luckily - this is my favourite type of person! - I must like being challenged or confused [of course being where I am right now, I have a lot of opportunity to be confused!])

But regardless of whether or not there is a director... I am happy to be here!

Wow - obviously feeling all thoughtful today!  I am in hyper-ramble....

Oh Look…. A  time portal!!  (it is not just mogwai and gremlins you find in Chinese shops!)