Life Quest (and other stuff)

Sadly, I won't be able to use the mirror from last week's pic again...

So, almost 2 years ago now (how time flies), I started a 365photos project. The plan, to take a photo a day, for a year. (365 days in a year - get it? Okay, so this year it would be 366, go figure.) Anyway, about half way through my little project, I hit a wobbly. After my miscarriage I slowly lost interest in most hobbies etc, and eventually just stopped. Can't say I'm proud of that time, but life is life, and I'm still on this little quest after all. I even took a job I normally would not consider: Fitness coach. I know, I know, as far from designer as you can get, but this was great for me at the time. It forced me to be with people - and forget about my own troubles a bit, focussing on others. It brought me through some dark days, and I am grateful for that. I fell pregnant again, and am happy to have a little girl to show for it. I'm back to design, and mostly back to being myself (although too many days still caught in "not bothering with make up" ...

I admit I have been a bit quiet on the update front, in truth, I have been quiet on the blogging front as a whole, but here I am, and if you give me a couple of hours you'll see that I'm back, with avengeance... That said, let's get back to the business at hand, the 365 photos update. As I am nearing the halfway mark of the 365 photos challenge, I am both excited and disappointed. I am excited because some of the photos I have been taking with my cell phone are rather beautiful. I am disappointed because not all of my photos are beautiful. Some are downright awful. But I'm here to learn and (hopefully) get better. So here are my favourites since the last update: Day 71 - Crane. Pitty about the dirt on the car window it was taken through, but still pretty I think. Day 75 - Shadow Day 76 - Colours in fibre optics Day 88 - Field My favourite, favourite of this lot. Day 112 - S.w.ing! Pure happiness. Day 126 - Red flower One of those that...

A pic of the sticker Cazpi sent me. A couple of weeks ago I was reading cazpi's blog and found an entry telling about the world wide moment . It perked my interest. So I quickly bounced over to the World Wide Moment website . It was settled. I would take part. From then on my life build up to that moment, the 10th of the 10th of 2010, 10 past 10 GMT or 10:10 GMT 10 -10 -'10. I had many ideas of what to take, where to go, how to make an impact. On the day however, we stayed home after a busy couple of days, and I decided to train my lens on my boy. And then the moment came and hundreds and hundreds of people around the world (day or night, depending where they are) took their cameras and pressed the shutter. And this was my result: My boy kicking a goal with his world cup ball. And at virtually the same moment, hubbie also clicked: You see, I really took the previous one...   :) It was almost magic. Knowing that for this minute I was part of ...

It was International Observe the Moon Night this past Saturday. Although threatened by clouds, we still managed to see the moon and show it to anyone interested. The moon as it was on the night. Taken with a Canon 350D prime focus mounted on 10inch wide, 1200mm long dobsonion  telescope, f4.8, ISO100, shutter speed: 1/8sec. The photo was taken by my hubbie. Read and see more about the InOMN on  www.psychohistorian.org  or the Cape Centre Facebook page .

This past Saturday there was a Moon-Venus occultation. There was no dark magic involved, it simply means that the Moon passed in front of the planet Venus, and therefore Venus disappeared from the sky for a while. Here in Cape Town we were ideally positioned to see this occurrence and hubbie and I was standing by with the camera. Venus moved behind the moon at 14:15 from the dark side of the moon, making it look like it just disappeared from the sky. About an hour and a half later it popped out on the other side. But, although seeing the occultation itself was very special, the fact that I could see Venus during the day was enough to get me excited. As a friend says, once you’ve seen it for the first time, you want to kick yourself that you've never looked for it before. The following photos were taken mostly by hubbie, with at least one (possibly two) by me. We used a Canon 350D attached to a 10 inch, 1200mm long dobsonion telescope (f4.8), no tracking (moved by hand from ti...

I had every intension of taking the time and improving my photography "eye." Being able to see the shot before it's taken and spot the good shot when I see it. Okay, so maybe learning that in a week or two is on the ambitious side, but I was hoping to at the very least pay attention. I didn't really. Somewhere along the line I got distracted with astrophotography, and my 365 challenge almost bordered on a chore every now and then. But that said, I still think I got a few pretty beautiful shots with my Samsung Jet cell phone. Here are my favourites of the past couple weeks: Day 39 - Absinthe makes the heart grow fonder - a staged shot Day 44 - Good morning, sunshine Day 46 - The streets Day 50 - Sunset Day 51 - The field I'm also very glad to have inspired Lee with this challenge. She has put her own, rather wonderful spin on it and you can find it at Ponderings from the Cape . The link is for Day 1, but she's almost two weeks into...

The 365photos started out as a fun, creative project, but now it would seem that it wants to be more. The basic rules still apply, take a pic a day, upload to Twitpic . But I am starting to feel that the photos must not just be a happy snappy, but proper photography. And seeing what people out there can do with just a cell phone, I know that I can do better. That said – pics of the cats and kid will still make the cut :) I’m also very happy to say that @Robi27 has joined the cause. She’s also tagging pics #365photos, so have a look! Now, a few of my favourites from photos I took over the past two weeks: Day27 Blue Sky  Day28 Tree Day32 Lights Day34 Innocent Hands And because a self portrait was bound to make its appearance… Day38 Self Portrait (more extreme phone effects) I also have to amend my rules a bit. When I forget (happened once so far on Day 21) then I must simply send in an extra pic the next day. I will still do blog posts about the challenge, but it will b...

When the rain came down yesterday morning, I decided that the Athlone cooling towers had to go down without me. But, as the time drew near, the rain took a break and hubbie and I quickly grabbed the camera, binoculars, telescope and toddler and off we went. Figuring that since it’s pretty far away, Tygerberg hill would be a good (read quiet) call. It would turn out we were not the only ones with this thought. At 11h30 there were people everywhere. After some double parking to unload, I took the car to a slightly more legal spot and scampered back. Then we waited. Shouting. Towers falling. The thunderous sound only hitting a couple of seconds later. Dust. It was all over. Here are some of the pics Hubbie ( @gavlock ) took. He used our Canon EOS 350D in drive mode, shutter speed: 1/4000 sec, ISO: 400,  attached to a Skywatcher aperture 10 inch, focal length 1200mm telescope. And in the spirit of my 365photos chal...