First Solo Wedding...

I'm off in about 10 minutes to shoot my first wedding as the solo photographer...

It's taken many years of collecting gear (cameras, lenses etc), getting comfortable shooting all manner of things, learning some of the do's and dont's about weddings and getting a huge dose of *wake up* from my ex-wife. All of this had conspired to create in me the desire to get out there and do something different with life.

I have been around photography all of my life and know quite a few professional photographers some of whom are very successful. Coming from a technical background I never thought that I could do what they do. Over the last little while I have met some photographers who made me think - if they can do it why not me?

So, I'm off... I just hope I don't forget anything...

Photos to follow...

Now, where did I put my keys?

Album cover design...

Jacinta over at One Little Acorn set a task... This is the result... I could have cheated and come up with a much better band name and song title and even a better image but it is just for laughs...

The task was to:

1. Go to "wikipedia" Hit “random” or click http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random The first random wikipedia article you get is the name of your band.

2. Go to "Random quotations" or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3 The last four or five words of the very last quote of the page is the title of your first album.

3. Go to flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.

4. Use photoshop or similar to put it all together.

5. TAG the friends you want to join in (or do what I did and leave it up to whoever wants to join in).

Gestalt... No I didn't sneeze...

Gestalt, in english, relates to form and shape. The meaning it has been given in my course relates to how much or, more correctly, how little of a "thing" you need to be able to see so as to be able to determine what that thing is.

This photo is an example. It should be relatively easy to determine what the "thing" is but can you work out which part of the thing you are looking at?

This one is lots easier...


And this one should be no problems whatsoever...

If you went down to the zoo today...

These are just some of the things you may have seen through the bushes...?


An elephants trunk...


An elephants wrinkly butt...


A giraffe...


And maybe you would have even glimpsed a monkey...

That time of year...

Unfortunately one of the side issues of living in the lucky country is the horrible things that happen that make us think we are lucky when they aren't happening.

Victoria, Australia, February the 7th 2009 saw record temperatures of 47 degrees Celcius in Melbourne and along with very low humidity and strong winds (and with the help of at least one arsonist) we had the worst fires ever recorded in Australia. It's taken nearly a week but the winds have turned a little and we are now getting the smoke in Melbourne. The fires have destroyed 1800+ homes, left 7000+ people homeless and although the authorities haven't mentioned death tolls for a few days the last count stood at 180+. The expectation is that the number may double. Whole towns have been burned to the ground!

There are numerous horrific stories and just as many stories of heroic deeds done.

The photo is taken across the road from my workplace and would be a lovely, glowing sunset if the truth wasn't known.

The fires are still burning.