Archive for ‘Photography’

June 3, 2010

Discovery Date: Admiring Wellington and a Good Book

I forced myself outdoors for my discovery date today. I had to take advantage of the fact that the rain had stopped (for the moment.)

I took my camera and headed into Wellington city.

I love how our city and the people can progress, but does not turn its back on the beauty from the past.


On your walk down Lambton Quay you are bound to pass buskers and even workers digging right in the middle of the footpath.

I ended my discovery date at Astoria in Midland Park. I grabbed myself a yummy tart and hot chocolate then found a table outside.

There were moments I actually wished I had sunglasses, and other times, a scarf! That’s Wellington for ya!

Recently, I received a surprise package in the mail. My best friend had bought me my very own copy of “A Mother’s Book of Secrets“! (She’s so good to me…totally spoilt!)

Shawni Eyre Pothier co-wrote it with her mother Linda Eyre. It is a BEAUTIFUL book, which I am sure a lot of mothers can relate to.

It is filled with real life experiences and practical tips as well.

I think what makes it special, is that it is written from Shawni’s point of view, which is from the trenches of motherhood. As well as Linda’s point of view, which is looking back on motherhood with a bit of perspective.

Some of my favourite quotes so far:

“There isn’t a more difficult yet more important and magnificent career than that of a mother”

Linda Eyre

“Sometimes success is when we don’t get through the to-do list but instead stop long enough to notice the little things. To savor moments. Not only to notice the delight in our children’s eyes, but to help create that delight.”

Shawni Eyre Pothier

(Shawni has a blog called 71 Toes. It’s a great blog, so be sure to check it out!)

February 24, 2010

Participating in life. Making our choices more meaningful

Thank you for the all the lovely encouraging comments by the way, they always make me smile!

Lara from The Golden Seven said in the comments yesterday, “You’ve just about convinced me to come to Wellington on the next plane and sit at your front window and stare out of it all day.”

It made me think about how I really don’t stop and sit and admire the view as often as I should. Those times I took the photographs, my children were the ones who recognised the beauty and came to get me. And where was I? I sure wasn’t looking out of the window to notice the beauty that was unfolding right outside.

So, I have been thinking a lot this morning. About how there are things to be appreciated around us, but we may not be paying attention.

Do I take my blessings for granted?

How good am I at connecting with each child on a daily basis?

How well do I notice the world I’m living in and what we can learn from it, and what it has to offer?

Am I missing the beauty that is unfolding right in front of me? 

Am I there physically, but my mind is elsewhere?

Could I be more engaged?

Can I change my actions, to make a positive impact on my life and my family?

I let these thoughts jumble around my head during my discovery date, while I did some writing, planning, shopping and photography.

After pondering all morning, I really wanted to make more meaningful choices in my life.

After picking up my 3 year old from Playcentre, I decided we were going to have a picnic by the beach. We went home, I did the laundry, and got everything ready for the picnic and off we went to Oriental Parade.

It was looooovely.

After an early dinner, we all jumped on the tramp once we finished our chores. We even did a spot of cloud watching.

One of the kids wanted to go to ride their bikes at the school (something they have asked, but it always seemed to be at the “wrong time”) and I thought “yeah, let’s do that!”.

So this is my journey this week….to make my actions more consistent with how I ultimately want to live my life.

If you have any tips on how you have kept you and your family from falling into the trap of a bad version of a grounds hog day, let me know!

February 23, 2010

“Look mummy! It’s heaven!”

The kids burst into my room this morning to tell me that they could see heaven!

I came out and looked out our living room window.

Oh wow!!

The kids were so excited, they thought angels were going to come down!

Just before bedtime, my 5 year old said,  

“I want to see heaven again.”

“I’m going to go check”

He walks off to the living room, then returns.

“Hey I got some bad news, heaven’s gone”

“I like heaven…”

:)

February 19, 2010

Inspirational Quote: The beauty around us

“Keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life”

KAHLIL GIBRAN

Earlier this week, the girls told my hubby that there was a beautiful sunset, and that they should tell me. When I saw it, my jaw dropped. It was the most beautiful pink sky I had ever seen! I quickly grabbed my camera and started running (yes running!) down the street to the hill/reserve near our place that overlooks the Wellington harbour. By the time I got there the pink had turned into a deep orange and the edges were a mixture of blue/orange/pink. Nature always surprises me at how beautiful it can be! It takes my breath away.

“Nature never did betray the heart that loved her.”

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

January 28, 2010

Getting past my decorator’s block!

Home decorating is not one of my strengthes.

Although, I have started to get an idea of what I like, pulling it all together is a bit daunting. Consequently, I have focused on being functional rather than fashionable (which sometimes can be a good thing with 4 kids!). Butttt..deep down I would like a home that reflects our lifestyle, interests and personality.

Recently I worked through some of my decorator’s block:

  • I purchased some cushions in my favourite colour. I chose something because it was fashionable, instead of functional….let’s face it people, cushions plus children equals cushions constantly on the floor, rather than on the couch.

  • My hubby and I framed more of my photos. Even thought I wanted to “stall” to think about the “right” photos, or the “right” frame or the “right” place to hang the photos, my hubby helped me push through to the end….encouraging me to just “try it!” I’m so glad we “tried it out” because it looks so much better than before…which was NOTHING!

This is part of our downstairs hallway:

These are some photographs I took at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens last October:

I was inspired by Centsational Girl transforming her photographs of white flowers into black and white prints. She gives really easy instructions, and I just love her end results!

Here are mine:

Below are some of my before and after shots (I would love to get large square frames like CG too!):

These were some wild flowers growing on the side of the road to Arthurs Pass. In Picasa I boosted the saturation, cropped it and made it black and white.

Before:

After:

I took this photo when I was walking around Christchurch last Oct 09.

Before:

After:

For the tulip photographs, I cropped two of the photos, to make them less busy. I also wanted them in portrait style, rather than landscape.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

I love these photos, but I can’t take any credit for them…it just happened to be drizzling when I took the photos…and look at the colour of those tulips! They are beautiful!!

Now I get to stare at them every day! I’m glad I got past my decorator’s block!

Reality Check: Now I just need to get rid of the mess and clutter that seems to accumulate around the hallway so it doesn’t distract from the photos! hahaha

January 16, 2010

Things I Love: Picasa Collages

A lot of my friends (and I’m sure a lot of you out there) are Picasa literate, but I have been a slow convert to Picasa (“Picasa is a software download from Google that helps you organize, edit, and share your photos. It’s free, and easy to use.”) Unfortunately, my personality is such that I can be a bit slow at converting to things. I didn’t take the plunge to buy some rockin’ boots until a whole year after the fad started!

After you download the software, Picasa searches out all the photos you have on your computer. The new version has face-matching technology. Picasa scans all the photos in your collection, identifies the ones with faces, and groups photos with similar faces together. Then you get to say who is in the photo. Pretty  cool! Picasa has made folders for all the members of my family!

I haven’t really used the photo manipulation functions yet, but Centsational Girl swears by it. What I have done this week is made picture collages.

This was my first attempt at using the photo collage function in Picasa. Me likey! Beats making a photo montage by lining up photos in Publisher any day (Yes I did do that! On more than one occasion! But with Picasa you just choose the photos you want in it, and it does all the rest!)

This is one I did the other day. We had a fun day out with the cousins a few days ago, and I wanted to put a photo collage in each of my children’s journal (Reality Check: Just incase you suddenly had visions of beautiful journals filled with photos and daily journal entries…..Our children’s journals are not up to date, and they have hardly any photos in them *wink* Hopefully my addiction to making collages will help this cause!)

 This is the collage I did for my youngest.

Tonight I have followed Clover Lane’s tutorial to make a banner. After some  fiddling, I came up with the one below. Unfortunately, the blog template that I’m using, doesn’t allow me to “hide” the automatically generated title for my blog that you see at the top of the screen. So I will just have to sigh, and admire the banner in this post instead.

How do you make your headers for your blogs?

Hmmmm…what else can I make into a collage???

October 27, 2009

Discovery date: Photography session at Botanic Gardens

As I was planning my week on Monday, I decided that I would set aside time to have a “discovery date”. A discovery date is basically a couple of hours that you set aside to “discover” what things you like. It can also be a time to do something you love or which is just plain fun! I decided to call it a discovery date, because I am still on a journey to discover what things make me tick.

Once a week I have 2 1/2 hours where both my youngest children are at Playcentre. I thought this would be a perfect time to do my discovery date.

I haven’t had a chance to take photos lately, so I decided that I would go to the Botanic Gardens in Wellington to snap some shots. It was a lot of fun. I couldn’t wait to get home to see how they turned out.

Botanic Gardens, Wellington

Photo by Juggling Motherhood

October 11, 2009

My journey as a photographer

I started getting interested in photography by accident. Last year I came across some beautiful photos of flowers by Hichako on Flickr. I just loved them so much, that I was inspired to take up photography. I was hoping that one day I could produce pieces of art as beautiful as Hichako’s to put up on our wall.

Christchurch, New Zealand is known as the "Garden City". This photo was taken at Christchurch's Botanic Gardens.

Christchurch, New Zealand is known as the "Garden City". I took this photo at the Christchurch Botanic Gardens.

What  started you on your journey as a photographer?

August 5, 2009

Dawn photography

Dawn at the docks

Sunrise at Chaffers

Today I have learned that “dawn + camera = great photos”.

Who would have thought that waking up before the sun comes up and picking up your camera could get you such amazing shots!

When I went out it was raining, and cloudy, and I was resigned myself to do reflection shots through puddles etc, because the sky looked so dull.

Then I saw it, the sun started peeking through the clouds, and I was so excited that I pulled the car over at the docks and started snapping away. It was still raining, so I was careful not to get the lenses wet. I was able to catch the sun breaking through the clouds, creating amazing colour contrasts.

By the time I got to the beach, the sun was higher and the rain had stopped. The sun was dancing along the clouds and the water, so needless to say, I was a bit trigger happy trying to capture my first sunrise.

I am looking forward to my next morning adventure into dawn photography!

June 16, 2009

Fog photography Part 2

Foggy day Dancing Fog

Today I have learned that if the fog starts to get too heavy, go higher!

The blue skies together with the blanket of fog creates amazing photos. One thing is to be patient, one minute the skyline can be hidden, the next minute it totally clears up.

It pays to have a pick of places to go to when the fog comes in, that will give you the kind of photos that you are after. This may mean asking other photographers where they go, or go on your own scouting mission.

One way to know if you got a good spot,  is when you see all the other photographers flocking to that spot on a foggy day. Like you can see in the photo below.

photographer in the mist

June 16, 2009

Fog photography

Lights by the piers Tree tops in the distance

Today I have learned that you can take advantage of the fog, by looking out for objects that slowly dissppear into the fog

When the fog sets in you don’t need to abandon your photo session. Look around you to see if there are any interesting shots that involve objects that recede into the fog as it gets further away from you. This can create a lovely moody, mysterious shot.

May 19, 2009

Night Photography

Night photography

Car lights

Today I have learned that you can take amazing night shots  from a bridge overlooking a motorway by adjusting the aperture and using a tripod.

I have been attending a photography course during the evening. Today we went on a “field trip” to do night photography.

I was able to produce  professional looking photos of the car light making a trail in the darkness by doing the following:

1. Pick a spot overlooking a motorway

2. Choose a time of day and area where the traffic will be moving steadily (this won’t work if cars are congested by traffic lights)

3. Make sure it is dark enough that the car lights will show up in the photo

4. Place your camera on an tripod (this is essential)

5. Play around with your setting so that you have a long exposure. I put my SLR digital camera on the aperture number which was 22

6. Set your camera to self timer (to avoid camera shake when you push down the shutter)

7. Focus by pushing your camera half down, and then all the way to activate self timer.

8. Your camera should take a picture but it will seem like it isn’t doing anything for awhile, then a photo will appear on the LCD of streaky car lights!