Playing around

Been playing around with my new camera/lens. I love the low light ability and depth of field when using this lens on f1.8 - check out some of these pics from the past two days :) Love the ones of Ben and Sienna's morning antics, and the face of Ash crying up at me (which happens at least 5 times a day!.

Starting to think about packing for NSW - we leave on Tuesday. Packing for 4 travelling in a corolla can be a challenge, I'll have to check which suitcase fits in the boot with the stroller and portacot.






Must remember to get to Canon tomorrow and pick up my 350D, even if the body doesn't work I still need the lenses I checked in with it. Also, it is still mine. I want it back!

Dancing in the Deep

That is the name of the new painting I did this afternoon. It's not fantastic or anything, but it felt good to paint without purpose, and be messy, just do what I do.


Got a new camera body this morning - a 400D. This replaces my 350D, because the repair quote from Canon was over $900. Rather than spending that on fixing the old model, I spent just a couple of hundred more to get a brand new body of the new model, which is higher mexapixels and with a few new features. I also took advantage of the chance to pick up a lens I've wanted - a f1.8 fixed-focal-length lens. I would've liked the 85mm, but that was just too much, whereas the 50mm was very affordable. Fantastic depth of field, and really good in low light conditions. Here are a couple of shots I took just now while having a play.

Blowing Bubbles

Another new page - these two are for the Scrapbooks and More Elsie's 52 Challenges.

New Page Today

Too much

I wrote a whole bunch of stuff today, but I won't put it here. It is just too much to saddle other people with.
Let's just say my personal crises, my intellectual and creative issues, my business doubts, etc, continue. Danielle's identity saga part 368. Or whatever, I don't actually count :P

Did some pages at the Dylan Hartung fundraiser scrapbooking day on Saturday. Met Charmane from ZigZag's design team, she was very sweet. I'm not a very chatty person though.
Here are the pages I did, I especially like the one of Ben, with a comment he made to me on Friday, which is very 'Ben'.

Kell did two awesome layouts, check out her blog to see!

Poetic Dreams

Lullaby

Do you feel my kiss on your forehead,
sweet sleep?
Hear my lullabies in your dreams?
My silent song is with you
through darkness,
My thoughts wishing for
your peace.

Do you know when
shadows lengthen
My story turns them
into light?
Near or far my love will
hold you
As you journey safely
through the night.

----------

Sorry

I cannot save you
from yourself.
Despite myself,
I must let go.
This is so sad,
this is so sorry,
I know, my love,
I know.


---------------

Sleep

I fall asleep beside my cello,
beside the lamp
beside my bed.
Paris frames my walls in three,
a memory dances
in my head.
My pen is making rhymes, you know,
I don't know
where they're born.
Darkness threatens from my lungs
and so my heart
is old and worn.

-------------------------------

Hum

As babies sleep through darkness
my heart's hums
keeps this cold fist
from letting go.
The light of the core
of me
walks about outside.
Besides,
it is enough to stop
and smile, just as
it is enough to be
alone.
Unclench from deep inside
me, hold less tight
and I will
leave less whole.

On Longing

"I’m so sorry, sorry love

That some dawns

I want to be gone

But then the sun goes up and up

And I am lying in it some"

These are some of the lyrics from Holly Throsby's song 'On Longing'. It washes over me, fairly regularly, this feeling that I sometimes wish I was just not here. Along with equally sincere regret that I feel this way, and silent apologies to my loved ones that I do not radiate the joy I should feel considering the blessings I have. And then there is guilt, of course. All circling back to this feeling I have sometimes that has recurred for more than ten years, and I wish I didn't have it. That sometimes I want to be gone. From myself, not from my friends or family. I don't ever want anyone else to be without me, if they want me, but the feeling is that I want me to be without me.

Anyhow, it just comes and goes. Not debilitating, and in that I am also lucky, but just a little bit sad.

That said, I never forget the 'sun' that I have in my life, even when something inside stops the rays from warming through me. But I can always see them. I have much to love.

Kell's New Blog

My sister Kelly has started a blog, and I made a header for her to connect with the style of the Kiti Q website (she co-owns and runs Kiti Q with my friend Teresa). I've added it to the blogs list in the margin, or you can check it out here.

I did a new page yesterday morning which I really love. Used actual fabric which is the first time I have, though I've been wanting to try it for ages. It also features the poem I wrote - and posted here - back in September. The photos are from a selection I took using the infra-red remote control for my camera, back at the end of July, just before the trip to Germany.

I submitted it at lunch to Scrapbook Creations and For Keeps, and Jannah Kelly from Scrap Creations accepted it just five minutes from when I sent the email. So I emailed FK to say please ignore the submission I just sent, and Julia replied saying she also loved the layout! Was very funny about it all too, she obviously has a good sense of humour :) And it was all very good for my scrapping ego. If only I produced pages so popular every day!


I am missing my camera! If I'm lucky I might get it back in two weeks, before the NSW trip. I keep 'seeing' potential shots though I can't take them. I might not even take them if I had the camera, but not having a choice about it really gets to me. Hmm. I must be patient!

Such Boyish Charm

I forgot - I did a new layout on Friday at the Kiti Q scrap n chat - here it is. My cute little nephew Jude :) I'm trying to work through the challenges in Elsie's 52 Challenges book, and this is 'scrap a fresh layout on a white background'. Number 12? Something like that, anyway.

It is also inked around the edges in a lime green, but that kind of got cut off when I scanned it.

Backlog

I had a marathon image editing day on Thursday, going through all my photo folders over the last 3 months and editing choice shots I'd previously missed. I know I'd been quite slack for awhile - taking photos, but then just dumping them on the hard drive and forgetting about them!

These are some faves from the day's work... and yes, Hayley, they will all be on the family site soon!

I made a Danielle Q Photography tshirt on Friday and it turned out really well. It has a filmstrip with 3 landscape black and white portraits - of Alannah, Riley and Sienna - printed on white. There is also the website printed on white. Both were cut out separately and sewn on to the back of the black tshirt, between my shoulder blades. Then at the bottom hem on the left side, at the front of the tshirt, I have sewn my logo - printed on white - onto the edge. Then I cut the hem so it has the uncut edge to suit the patched look. It is quite a funky tshirt, and good for advertising ;)

For Pete's sake...

...whoever Pete is, of course. I am so up and down with my motivation for photography - not the hobby, just the business idea. Lost motivation again, but sold the dig files of one shoot this week, and bought a new photography mag to meander through, so it is coming back to me. I have an editorial listing, with accompanying image, in next year's Nappy Bag Book, so that gives me until March to get my act together, design the website properly and whatnot.

On another note, here are some more pics from Saturday's festivities, and one of Sienna and her teddies from that morning, before the hectic day began!

Weddings, babies and scrapbooking

The thing with the spider is that this really big huntsman - the biggest I've seen in years, actually - appeared right next to my scrap desk last week. Kind of freaked me out! I got a plastic container to move it but the container I chose was too small - it's legs wouldn't fit in - so I had to find a bigger one! Then I did the old container / cardboard trick and took it outside. Quite an adventure, but makes me think I might take down my 'inspiration board' that is leaning on that side, it is obviously a handy hiding spot for arachnids of various sizes.

Been having a busy few days. Well, yesterday wasn't exactly full of activity, but in general. On Saturday just after lunch I did a quick photo shoot for Paula and Jay, some friends who are expecting their third bub soon. The challenge was to choose, edit, have printed and frame a photo by an hour and a half after the shoot finished! It was pushing it, but I got it done, and this was the shot I chose for enlargement.

Also on Friday night I completed a few challenges for the Scrap Top 50 Cybercrop, making sure I did all three items as Elsie Challenges as well, for the challenge gallery on Scrapbooks and More. Two of them are Elsie Challenges that haven't come up yet, and I did a separate page a few days ago of Ash, which is for the Elsie Challenge but wasn't for anything else. Did that chain of thought make sense? LOL, I know what I'm talking about, anyway.

Yesterday I started playing Kameo on Xbox 360. Haven't played any video games for awhile, but this one caught my interest when Ben picked it up the other week. It is fun, too, a world of 'mystics and elves' and has a lot of adventuring to do - there's a bit of escapism for me :)

Someone called me on Saturday about my photography and was asking about weddings. I don't usually agree to weddings, but she was sweet and so is coming round to chat about it tomorrow afternoon. So I am going to collect some examples of my wedding photos together and put them in a gallery for my website. Also need to put together some pricing structures. Things to do, always, always. Feeling pretty relaxed about it at the moment tho - tonight is soon enough for work :) Been houseworking all morning so it is quiet time now.

And there was a spider too, I'll tell you later

Well I signed up to do Scrapbook and More's Elsie Flannigan's 52 Scrapbooking Challenges competition. I love the idea of doing 52 challenges in 6 months - that means I get at least 2 layouts a week done which is not always the case! But I am doubting my wisdom at adding to my to-do list.... not that it is compulsory or anything.

Man I had a cool concept for an article/essay the other night while in bed, and couldn't be bothered getting up to write it down. Now I don't remember it!

Here is a new layout I did for the Scrapbook Creations cover competition. The rules didn't mention posting online or anything so I am sure it is fine to pop up here. Hmm, also Kell and Hayley and Sylvia are the only people I know who read this, so they won't tell on me! Hehe.

I feel a bit sick still - felt awful all day yesterday - but I really want to scrap so I hope Ash cooperates this morning :) Sienna is at care, so I am a bit free-er than usual. Hmmm de dum. I have peanut butter on my shoulder from Ash and his toast.

Here is another layout I did on Sunday and Monday, I'd left it at Kell's til Wednesday. Is very soft and sweet, a bit pastel for me tho.

Tripod perform at a Comedy Festival

Ben sent this around this morning, as 'Ben's Love Song' - I had a giggle at it, though it is hilariously appropriate!

Mud is Squishy

I got out in the garden on Sunday, which was great. Though my arms are STILL sore from all the digging and hoeing I did! I planted 8 pittosporum on the fence line, scattered around the lilly-pilly saplings, the hydrangea and the camellia that are already along there. Oh, and the Native Mountain Pepper sapling which is placed in from the fence about a metre and a half. The horse-chestnut tree is flowering, and looks gorgeous.

I have almost finished a new layout, but I left it at Kell's house yesterday morning :O. So instead of a scrap page, here are a few new photos from the last few days. Love Ash's new extra cheeky grin!