Scorpionfly

First time I've ever seen a scorpionfly. It was very patient with me taking lots of shots. Not particularly happy with the lighting, the flash is a little harsh.

Glass Houses

Took a scenic drive along Mountain View Road, Maleny the other day. Beautiful view of the Glasshouse Mountains.

The Hayden Roll

Kristy phoned, very excited, yesterday afternoon. Hayden had just rolled over for the first time while I was at work. When I got home he did it again. This is the second time he rolled over from his back onto his front unassisted. Unfortunately we only turned the camera on after he had already thrown his leg over.

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary visit

We took Hayden to Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary today. First time he's seen and touched koalas, kangaroos, and other native Australian animals. Needless to say, so much to look at and touch, he loved it.

We got season tickets, valid for a year, so will definitely be going back some more. Handy because it's so close, but at the moment he's only lasting a couple of hours, so the season pass will be used a bit.

1 city, 1 Moon, 4 planets

Around 12 August there was a rare conjunction with the Moon and 4 planets - Mercury, Venus, Mars and Saturn. I had checked the weather, all was supposed to be clear, planned (in my head) where I'd be shooting from here in Brisbane and the look I was after. Then reality kicked in...

While the night was clear, the wind was absolutely howling. I had to weigh my tripod down to stop it all blowing over. It was freezing cold and I hadn't packed a jumper. The light pollution was worse than I anticipated. The location I had was not quite giving me the relationship between the conjunction and city that I had in my head. And at the scale of image here, not sure the actual planets are that visible



Crescent Moon with Mercury just below right, bright Venus up a little higher with Mars just above and Saturn just below.

Train rides are fun

On the way home from Hayden's first swimming lesson, we noticed the Multicultural Festival on at Roma St Parklands. We decided to go home, let him have a nap, then get the train back in for a bit of a walk around.

He absolutely loved it. The train ride. The festival. People and movement everywhere.

At the festival:

Hayden's first swimming lesson

Kristy and I took Hayden for his first swimming lesson at Spring Hill Baths on Sunday. He absolutely loved it.

It was a nice small group, and we're doing it with Andrew/Michelle/Lachlan as well, so that's awesome.

You can't teach them early enough to swim and be water-safe.

I have been Toilet

You might think this photo of a funny sign was taken somewhere overseas, but it was taken right here on the front door of a shop in Toowong (Brisbane), Australia.

"I have been Toilet for a while. Just wait a second. 1 min plz"

Must admit at first glance I thought the last bit said "I make piz". Haha.

Love the little picture. Just in case you didn't get where they were.

Do you reckon Hayden likes avocado?

Starting Hayden on solids. He's been having the rice cereal, potato, pumpkin, sweet potato, carrot, apple, pear, etc. No worries. One of the books we have lists popular foods, and the only one we hadn't given him was avocado. Check out this video of us trying him on that for the first time.

It is a bit hard to tell at first when he's trying new foods to tell if he likes it or doesn't. He's still getting a hang of the whole swallowing thing, and has this gag reflex if it doesn't slide down like milk. So we weren't deliberately trying to make him eat this. Not until around the 3:30 mark I realised and stopped. Still, his reactions are kinda cute. Kinda?

Sorry it's around 4mins long. Still working out how to edit videos to cut the times down.

PS - don't ask me about my hair. Was before I got a haircut and I just rolled out of bed.

Some landscapes from NZ

Been going through my photo library cleaning it out. Came across these landscapes I took on our trip to New Zealand last year and decided to reprocess them as black and white conversions. Quite happy with the way they turned out, but always learning.

Rocky Shore:

Rainy day macros

Was supposed to go to Roma St Parklands today for another meet with some local macro enthusiasts. The weather had other ideas.

Cleaning out the fridge and found some mouldy cake. Ever wondered what mould looks like at 1:1, 3:1, and 5:1 lifesize? I did.

Sounds disgusting, doesn't it. Not sure what you think, but I think it looks beautiful at this scale. Like some alien forest.

5:1 lifesize


Crop from another shot:


More after the jump...

Happy Anniversary to us II

For our anniversary I made this mosaic of all of our wedding and honeymoon photos. About 2200 photos in all. Full image is some 12,500px wide. If you squint at this image you can see the original more clearly. We plan to get this printed on a huge canvas.

Click the image above for a bigger version, or go below to see what the original image looked like and some crops showing more detail.

Happy Anniversary to us

Today marks the second Anniversary of Kristy and I getting married. I have to say, it's been the best 2 years of her life and she is very lucky to have me. Seems like just yesterday she was chasing me and asking me out. Wasn't too long a wait for her to seize the opportunity when I was drunk one night, took advantage of me, and we've been together ever since. Her dreams really have come true.