The elusive blue wren

I have tried to photograph superb blue wrens so many times as they move through the yard with their harem. The only real success I've had is with an almost dead female wren. Not quite the same. Today I spied them flitting though and grabbed my 300 zoom lens as I dashed outside.
Here are my photos:

I swear he was there when I pressed the button. They are so quick!

Ah, there he is, see? That blue blur. Now if only I could sort out this manual focus before he disappears again...

...This is how it usually goes and I end up with a bunch of useless photos.

And then a miracle happened. He popped up on top of the bush right in front of me, and showed off is plumage in the sun.

See how handsome he is?!

Oh yes, you're handsome from that angle, too.

And then he was gone.

Some things to make you drool

My sister kindly gave my husband and I vouchers for a "Chocoholic Tour" of the city for Christmas. It is actually a cunning plot on her behalf to get us to come to visit. It works! We finally booked our tour for this morning.
The tour not only included delicious chocolate...

...that we enjoyed with coffee and hot... (can you guess?)... chocolate (are you drooling yet)...

.. but we enjoyed it in some of the most beautiful settings in the city!

We learned interesting snippets about the history of the architecture (and a few juicy tidbits). We spent some time in an arcade that is my favorite part of the city. So much to photograph there. I was even tempted to take a macro shot of a pot plant but thought better of it - only to find myself surrounded by people with DSLRs taking photos of potplants and ceilings and floors and us. So I went ahead and pretended I was part of the photography class, too :)

So that was my morning. Doesn't get much better than that, does it?
But wait...
For digi-scrappers I have more... (well, yes this is a plug, but in digital scrapbooking land it can get quite confusing following designers from one store to another and I've been excited to see so many new designers joining the twolittlepixels crew).
New designers to twolittlepxiels this weekend ... A-liya, Siamese Studio, Blue Flower Art, SAS Designs, EljjDorado Design, Maue Designs, AnjaJ Designs, and Avdesigns. Check out this week's twolittlepixels newsletter to see a selection of their products. Gorgeous!!

My 2009 Blurb book arrived

I've been doing a Photo-A-Day this year. I'm making an album with one photo per page. It was working so well I decided to go back to 2009 and do the same with whatever photos I took that year. I went with Blurb because most of the other printers are limited to 100 or so pages. I struggled to limit my book to 160 pages. Blurb will print up to 440 pages, but that is with thinner, poorer quality paper.

The wrap around cover looks great:

The pages are fine, but lack a crisp black compared to Shutterfly and Momento books that I've printed previously.

This is how thick 160 pages looks:

It was fine. They will print up to 440 pages but only in their thinner paper. I'm not sure how thick such a book would be, but that's how many pages I expect my 2010 album to have!

And here's the spine. The last thing I looked at when my book arrived. The thing I obviously forgot to check before sending for print!!!

Oh well!

Some observations (that I've added in response to Katrina's comment below):
I did "Standard landscape" which is 8 1/4"x10" (actual page image sizes are 9.6" x 8.2"). The trim guides and bleed areas are very clearly indicated and it was accurately trimmed. When you mouse over the photo area it pops up the exact pixel dimensions which is great. I was able to assemble all of my pages in a folder (named with the date - mm dd.jpg) and ran an automatic import into the book. So quick! The software was VERY easy to use. The dust cover was trimmed about 2mm (1/8") shorter than the book - and that is not right!

So, if you're doing a photo-a-day, what are you going to do with them?!
Has anyone printed a book thicker than 160 pages?!

Esther.

Family resemblances

We went to visit my Dad this weekend. He's just turned 75 AND had his knee replaced in the past week! Of course he is looking rather tired but doing very well. It goes without saying that I took a few photos. But when I got them home I was struck by some family resemblances. Do you see them?

 
Dad yesterday and my daughter last week.

Dad yesterday and his grandmother (in 1962, aged 88).This was not the best shot of him, and it seems unfair to compare him to his grandmother who was another 13 years older but there are certain family traits that run strongly!!

Or what about this one of my Dad from that 1962 photo and his father in 1929.

Here's the complete photo from 1962 with me, dad, his father and grandmother.

These old photos are so precious! I love studying them!!

Big events and great photographs (not!) .... thank goodness for kind strangers!

What is it with big events and photographs?! I was SO looking forward to last weekend for some great, meaningful photo opportunities. But between low light and malicious camera-confiscating security guards (OK, I know he was only doing his job...) and my own ineptitude I didn't get a single one. Instead I have a bunch of mostly poorly focused, grainy, camera-shake photos.
Firstly DH and I had tickets to an outdoor concert featuring Boz Scaggs and Michael McDonald of Doobie Brothers fame. I excitedly packed my DSLR and started taking photos as we walked from the carpark to the venue. This is the last photo I got to take:

Why, oh why, didn't I pack my point-and-shoot camera as a backup?!!
So I made do with my DH's phone. I'd never used it before. Whilst the light was still good I took a series of 5 photos to stitch together as a panorama of the event. Grainy photos, some were blurry, but I was able to piece them together in Photoshop OK:

I also took a few other photos whilst the light was good. It was such a lovely evening and quintessentially Australian setting. Quite special!
The row of dunnies:

The sunset:

But once it was dark the phone camera was hopeless. The kind couple sitting next to us had their Lumix camera and very kindly emailed me some photos and here's one of Boz:

The next day we took our eldest DD to the big city to settle into her hostel ready to start her Uni course. Lots to photograph, I thought! My photographer's eye (at least I thought I was developing one) completely deserted me. I tried a few lame shots.
The view of the city as we arrived:

The luggage in the back of the car - you can see her "L" plates, her bike and her pinboard of photos/memories:

This was a very significant day for my DD. We helped her move into her room (I took a bad photo of it) met so many other lovely parents and had a lovely lunch (took a bad photo of that, too). Perhaps I was too caught up in the events and emotion of the day to take proper shots. Then I met a wonderful man who is coincidentally in my local Camera Club. We compared cameras (my Canon 1000D vs his Canon 5D) and lenses (all I know was that his were BIG and HEAVY), then before I knew it he'd taken THIS shot:

Doesn't that just blow you away?! You'd swear it was taken in a studio with those light-reflecting umbrella thingies and a lovely blue backdrop, but it's just the natural light and the carpet! If you would like to see his gallery it is here: leedingedge.

So I am very thankful to these kind new friends for giving me some wonderful photos of thismomentous weekend!! And I realize how much more I have to learn! I think I'll have to join the local Camera Club, too!

Digital Scrapbooking

I've loved collecting images and telling stories since I was 10. I used to keep diaries of holidays and collect newspaper clippings. In the 38 years since I've tried all sorts of ways to record the memories (I might blog more about that another time.) But now I've found my niche. I love manipulating digital photos, scanned mementos and journaling in photoshop. And I love all the pretties that are out there to complement the colors of the photos or theme of my story. I love the whole online world of digital scrapping that has built up around the shops that sell these digital supplies and have made some special friends from all over the world!

Over the last 6 months I've been very lucky to be on a number of teams for the designers of these pretties and have had so much fun using their products. I am currently on the Core Creative Team for twolittlepixels. You might like to check out the designer of the month of February at twolittlepixels … the lovely Miss Cheryl.  Head on over to her blog for some fun and did someone say a freebie?

Here are some of the pages I've made using pretties from her kits:

Using Dreaming ... in black and white papers
and Dreaming ... in black and white alpha

Paper and alpha from "I love my girls"

White paper from Dreaming in Black and White, blue paper from B.A.D. Paper Pack
Sewing embellishments and alpha from I Love My Girls kit
Journaling lines from Write About It

Mostly from Sea Dreams kit

So if you'd like some of Cheryl's pretties, this is the month to get some!

Spiders

It seems to have been great web weaving weather! First Allan had to be careful to avoid this web as he went to hang out the washing in the evening (he's a good fella, isn't he?!!).

It was tricky getting the right focus and exposure on this. I had to resort to fully manual settings.

The last couple of mornings the sun has shone through the window in the garage and made the messy webs of the daddy long legs sparkle in the light.

 

Looks like it's time to give the garage a bit of a clean!

The next day I noticed this garden orb spider by our water tank.

 

This time it was the setting sun that added a sparkle to the web.

Luckily these spiders are all quite harmless and we only need to suffer the inconvenience of their webs.

I'm sure I could find some lovely poisonous redback spiders to photograph, but I'm not particularly keen to get  close enough for a macro shot!

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Well, I'm updating this to post a photo I just took!