Good night

Pleasant dreams....

Incidental Masticatory Yelp

Ok... so for the past 2 years I have been busily grinding my teeth down to tiny little nubs while I sleep....

Doing something about that at the moment with a special recipe... add one dentist, a whole heap of time and liberal servings of bank account....

My last visit involved the dentist stepping on my head to keep my mouth open for 90 minutes as ground what was left of some of my teeth down, made castings and then temporary crowns.  The real ones will be made and installed in the next few weeks  ( and this is the bottom left so far... I still have the other three sides to get done....)....  Afterwards I should be able to bite cable cars and things like a James Bond villain.

Anyway a temporary crown that I have on one of my teeth has just come off.. (while eating cheese out at a photo meeting of all things...).. and the lovely little exposed nerves underneath are declaring themselves to me quite mercilessly. And now that I am back home, I am finding I have to drink my burbon and coke with my head tilted to the side....

Portraits..

Mum, making a quilt....

Dad,
making dinner....

Healz,

not sure what he is making!

Photogeeking:
Mum, afternoon sunlight, X held a reflector for me to bring the light onto her face a little more, the quilt she was working on hanging in the background...
Dad - in the kitchen, very wide lens, one flash with a warming gel on it off to camera right, a high flash lighting the kitchen gear set off with the radio trigger things...
Healz, one flash with the warming in front of the screen, another flash with some paper over it to be able to see some of the back of the screen.  Flash is very close to him, meaning he is a good exposure, and the background is dark.

more play with a waterproof camera!

Water was not perfect....
there have been some storms off the coast, so it was stirred up pretty badly...

But still had some fun...

and finally.... a self portrait... the idea being I would wait until a wave nearly hit me... this was one of the better attempts.

Our Christmas Family Portrait...

Merry Christmas Everyone

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.

Wearing a bib....

Us westerners, when eating, sometimes need a little help to stay clean...

morning psych up

Some hairdressers getting ready for their psych up and dance before
starting work....

moonrise

Roof, meet Moon... Moon, say hello to Roof.





Photogeek stuff:
To shoot the moon you need to be really really zoomed in.  This is at the long end of my 200mm zoom (300 in old speak).  As well as being WAY further away than it looks, the moon is also brighter than it looks....  so where you think you are going to get the nice shot of the unlit foreground with a moon with some detail in it in the background.... well good luck with that.
So I cheated and found a building with lights on it, a long way away.... full zoom, hand held deliberately underexposed.
I really liked the yin/yang of the two circles with the line through the middle.  The seeming timelessness of the moon with the (what seems to me) very transitory nature of the buildings here.  But I am going into silly waffling territory now....

Sunrise in Beijing....

The air quality is good for something!

sometimes you just gotta....

Sometimes you just get the urge...
it has to happen now....
no time to think...
no time to get changed....
you need it now....
and it does not matter if you are in pink bunny pajamas or not....

a bit more

I think we can fit a little more in the gap right at the top......

Silk Markets

A shot of the Silk Markets from across the street....

No prices...
very few rules (apart from a claim inside the door that people should only buy authentic merchandise)...

Lots and lots of haggling....
I was not quite in a haggling mood last night so I was not at the top of my bargaining game. I walked away quite sure I had been massively ripped off rather than just mildly pickpocketted....

Singapore.....

waiting.....

in an airport lounge.....

I will be heading off to China very soon...

a very cold.. and therefore I expect very different China to what I saw last time....

Ready to go back into not being able to actually see my blog, or facebook or anything the might be a little less than ideal for the people of China to know....(I feel flattered that they see fit to block my little bloggy thing - ramblings about my moustache and how the boys have done in swimming are definitely worth firewalling!)

A gentleman nearby has been (rather too loudly) bi-linguilly speaking sweet nothings on the phone and convincing his beloved to wear less while talking to him on Skype.  I am therefore happy I have no photo to accompany this posting.