Boz Boz Boz

I have the image replaying over and over in my head, of my precious little Chicklet running towards me saying 'Boz Boz Boz' as she greeted me at her place today.

It's the first time that she has appeared overjoyed that I exist in the world and it made my heart sing.

She spent a lot of time leaning against me as she played with various toys and my jewellery.  It made me feel very warm and fuzzy.

I took a lot of photos of her today, but rarely looking through the view finder, so I ended up with lots of 'chopped off' shots.

I had photos of just an arm or just a leg or half a face or a body without a head, just her eyes or just her mouth!

Sometimes I can do that with the camera and end up with some wonderful shots, but alas, today was not one of those times.

I think she looks a lot like my youngest daughter, Bubbles, at the same age, in this photo.

She wore her cape and I dubbed her 'Sir Juniper, Knight of the Square (coffee) Table'.  Her little mouth was coated in strawberry juice (and so was the floor!) from the juicy strawberries that I took for a snack.

We shared carrot sticks, nuts and seeds, strawberries and grapes - a lot of which were scattered all over the floor by the time we finished!

I usually get a couple of hours to visit on a Saturday morning while Adoring Husband has his regular club golf day, but today was a special golf tournament, so I got to spend almost four hours with my lovely little family.

It was great!  But it wore me out and I climbed under the blankets in my bed at about 4 o'clock this afternoon and had a one hour nanny nap!  At the same time Adoring Husband was sprawled on the couch snoring quietly.

Home made pizza and footy tonight - Super Saturday on Fox Sports Channel and now a long evening of various Olympic sports to watch.

I've had a nice break today from my photos and I'll get back to it tomorrow.  I need to put them all onto a memory stick to send off for printing.

Less than six weeks til D-Day!

I will go to sleep tonight with the sound of my Chicklet saying 'Boz Boz Boz' in my head.  **happy grandmotherly sigh*

Nite all.

Big Mouth, little brother.

My little brother bragged about me, and the exhibit, on his blog this morning and then added a link to here so that people could come and view my photography.

So I decided to follow the link myself to see which of my photos would be the first viewed by a complete stranger.

Sadly, the first page of photos were not 'bragworthy' at all!

I really do need a website - or maybe just a facebook page?

Anyway, I've decided to find some of my favourite photos from the past 18 months (I can't believe that I have been keeping this blog for 18 months!!) and post them here today for the viewing pleasure of any newbies who might believe my brother and come looking for photography that is (according to him) "a must see"!

That is my effort for the evening. My brain is mush. Tonight has been a little R&R and I had a couple of wines with the girls at the club.
Tomorrow I get to spend a few hours with my Chicklet family, so there should be photos :D

Nite all.

Watching out for me.

I was pedalling past this house which is situated overlooking the river.

The walking path goes right past it.

After having a knee reconstruction last month, the man who lives in there was doing his exercises, walking up and down his stairs, when he spotted me and gave me a wave.

"Have you got your camera?" he called out (silly question!).  "The owls have been here three days in a row, but I haven't checked today ... come out the back and have a look."

So off we trotted out the back and around the corner of the house.

There they were.  Two small Tawny Frogmouths sitting close together on the branch.  They are very small compared to the two in the tree on my Holden Man's property.

Much to my annoyance, he appeared beside me and gently prodded the owls awake with a broom handle! "I'll get them to open their beaks for you" he said.

I suggested to him that they might avoid his property in future if he did this too often, but he said "Nah, I do this all the time when friends come over.  It doesn't seem to bother them."

**rolls eyes**

When I left his house, I decided to have a second coffee for the day and rode to the bakery (which is basically just across the road).  As I alighted from my trike I noticed a man running across the road from the caravan park waving his arms.

I looked behind me thinking that he was waving at somebody else, but then I heard him say "Just the girl I've been looking for!  I know where there are some owls!  They've been in the same place for four days now!"

"Excellent!" I replied "Lead the way!"

We began walking towards the house that I had just left and I said "Are these owls sitting in a frangipani tree in that house over there?" I pointed.  "Yes!" he said excitedly, until he realised that I had just been there.

I told him to keep me in mind if he sees anything else that I might like to photograph.

I really must make myself up some business cards with my mobile phone number on them to hand out to all of these enthusiastic spotters.  I believe I would be kept very busy every day, wildlife chasing!

There is one sentence that is most annoying and I hear it almost every day ... "You should have been here yesterday!"  (If they had my phone number, then maybe I could be 'there yesterday'!)

It's nice to know that people are watching out for me and thinking of me when they see something worth photographing.

I've had a good and productive day today with the camera - though more for the exhibit and less to share here.

Can't believe how early I am tonight!

Nite all.

The Decoy

It was low tide as I left the Seat of Knowledge this morning, so I pedalled along the river to the beach.

There waiting for me, and preening themselves for the camera, were three delightful pelicans.

Further out in the water, on a sandbank, was another group of pelicans.  Just as I was about to take their photo, they all took off and began flying further up the beach.

I looked in the direction that they were flying to see yet another large group of pelicans about a kilometre along the beach.  I could barely see them with the naked eye, but they were more visible through my 400mm lens.

So I decided to go for a walk along the beach to see if I could catch up to them and get close enough for a good shot.

By now the tide had turned and was beginning to run in.

When I got well past the halfway mark, every couple of hundred metres, I took a photo, just in case they decided to fly away and I couldn't get close.

The closer I got, the little streams from the ocean were beginning to flow deeper across the sand as the tide came in and my shoes got wet as I tried to tippy toe delicately through them (I hear you laughing at the vision of me trying to be delicate!).

They were beginning to look in my direction and I kept my eye on them because I didn't want to miss a good shot if they all took off together.

It seemed like I would never reach them! It took forever to get there! They all started to waddle towards the water.

Then one of them took off and flew towards me, flying almost directly over my head! I raised the camera and fired off a few shots to get this.

While I was getting this shot, much to my dismay, the other pelicans took off and flew behind me ... BACK towards the spot that I had just walked from!

So back I walked, through ankle deep water in some parts to get to the soft sand beach, so that I wouldn't have to walk through so much water.

It was good exercise and it was a glorious day, so my only complaint is that I couldn't get any worthy shots of such a lovely large group of pelicans.

Thank goodness I live in such an honest town, because my trike and all the junk in the basket, was all still waiting for me where I'd left it almost an hour earlier.

I had a sneaky little hide behind Kaz and Lucy's Man's house on my way home, to see what birdlife might be lurking in the bushes, now that Spring is creeping up.

I found a new bird that I've never seen in real life before. A Spangled Drongo.

My mother used to call me a drongo sometimes  - obviously not after the bird!

There was a cheeky little Grey Fantail and a couple of Brahminy Kites sitting high in the trees and some Noisy Friars washing themselves in the puddles, but nothing much else.


I'll try again in a couple of weeks.

Boo Radley phoned and asked if I'd photograph his beloved Port bottle collection for him, so I did that this afternoon too.

I've told him that I am far too busy and important to be at his beck and call over the next five weeks (okay, maybe I didn't use those words exactly), so he knows not to call me for photography duty until after September.

I spent the afternoon getting a couple more shots for the exhibit. I'm happy with two of the four different sets I created.

I'm feeling 80% happy with my progress at this stage ... which is a whole lot better than I was feeling last week!

So, except for the decoy pelican that foiled my group pelican plan, it's been a productive day!

Nite all.

Small Steps

I am taking small steps and getting there slowly, but surely.

Just a quickie tonight.

Another shot of the Osprey from yesterday, which I thought was pretty cool.

You don't get to see a bird's tongue very often do you?

Today was morning tea with the girls and I took Aussie H's disc of photos, and my computer, so that they could all see the photos too.
Now that Aussie H has a copy of them, I can start emailing a few copies to everyone else.

Taking small steps to bed now.

Nite all.

The Gallery

Adoring Husband and I went for a drive to Maryborough today, to have a look at the gallery and check out the frames that I can use for the exhibit.

The gallery is bigger than I remembered and so are the frames, which is a good thing!

So I feel a lot better about the exhibit now.  Less stressed.  More comfortable with what I'm doing.  I'm still having a bit of a crisis of confidence, but only because I'm wishing that I'd taken more photos in 'raw' (photographers know what I mean - non-photographers really don't WANT to know what I mean!).

Also when I compare my photos to Photoshopped photos, I can notice a big difference and I almost wish I'd learned to use PS!  I just keep telling myself that I take photos of real life and I want it to look like real life.

Anyway, the gallery staff are going to help set the photos into the frames and hang them a few days before opening which is now confirmed 7th September.

I think that I'm on track.  My 'to-do' list is getting longer, but I'm not bothered by that just yet.

I'm ok.

After Maryborough, we drove to The Bay and met Vegan Chickie and fam for lunch.

Little Chicklet is growing up so fast, that I can't keep up.  She's talking so much and is so tall!

This is her, leading Mama and Dadu.  She is definitely the boss of the house!

I love that she knows me now and calls me 'Boz' - much more fun than Nana or Granny :D



There was lots of giggles and silliness to be had and all too soon, it was time to leave.

Adoring Husband and I both got goodbye kisses today!

As we got to the car, I looked up and saw an Osprey perched in the tree not too far away.

I've wanted a photo of the Osprey for a long time now. It's probably not as good as I'd hoped, but we all have to start somewhere!

That's it for my day I think.

I stayed awake til after 2am to watch the Aussie, Adam Scott attempt to win the 2012 British Open Golf Tournament. He went into the final round with a handy four stroke lead and when I went to bed, he was on the 10th hole still with a three stroke lead.

Alas, when I awoke, he had lost the tournament. Maybe he'll win the next one. He's young enough to win lots of major tournaments. Go Adam!

Time for bed.

Nite all.

Less Discombobulated

I'm still not completely back to normal, but I felt a lot better today and was even capable of doing a baked dinner in between editing photos.  So that tells me that my brain is improving.

I got a phone call from my little brother last night!  We talked for over an hour!

He has been on an emotional roller coaster ride of late.  Life is 'happening' for him, which is great, and he is moving forward with his life, which is also great.  I still worry about him.

We talked about photography and he directed me to the redbubble.com site where I was able to find some of his old work from more than two years ago.

I remember that I saw some of it a few years ago, before I became a photographer, and thought then how good it was - but I was still pleasantly surprised by what I saw.  Some of his work is as good, or better than I remembered.

I told him that after we do Tasmania this year, for our next trip, we might find our way up his way and he can take us to all the secret places that I could get some great shots.

Free accommodation (or somewhere to set up our campervan) and a free tour guide in what is generally known as 'paradise'.  That's a pretty good deal!

Anyway, it was GREAT to catch up with him and spend so much time chatting about 'stuff'.

Today, I found my 'Repetition' shot.

I visited Boo (the man I met on Friday) this morning.

I didn't plan on the visit.  I just happened to ride past his house, as I do almost every morning, and he was in the garden so I called out to him.

He invited me into the garden and I took a couple of photos of plants for him.  I also found this plant which I though was excellent for the 'Repetition' challenge.

I had planned on a different kind of shot from his house, but I really needed to get the shot out of the way so that I could focus properly on my photos for the exhibit.

So here it is...

'Repetition'

Today, I made a rough 'to do' list.  I shouldn't have done it.  I panic a bit every time I look at it.  I know that when I start crossing things off the 'to do' list, I will feel a lot better.

It's a good thing :D

Nite all.