Poi swinging

So I've had flu for a few days and haven't had much desire to stand up let alone take photos, but here's a couple of snaps taken on saturday.  Had I not had a baby on my lap they'd have been better! 


I do enjoy moving light and long exposure so will make the effort to take something similar when I'm feeling better.

My Week....

We've had a busy and creative week.  

Nathan and Squish spent time decorating her new Doll's house.

I've done an awful lot of knitting....

I've baked a rather scrummy chocolate hedgehog

And of course, I have been looking after The Griff who is particularly adorable 

when he's asleep.

I shall endeavour to get more creative with my photography next week too!

Super baby!

Just a fun photo to get me back into the blogging.  Had a really busy week with children and other fun things.  I'll add a few more shots from the past week later on but this one of The Griff flying through the woods is my favourite...

Lemon Soda

Oh dear, it's only been a week and I'm already getting behind with my blog posts.  The aim of this shot was to bring out more than one part of the drink, so I wanted to draw attention to the lemon slice, bubbles and the ice.  It didn't quite work, you can't really see the bubbles in the first shot, but it worked a little better in the second.  







My lighting set up wasn't brilliant, I think I needed more back light or to bounce the flash to really make the most of the detail in the ice and soda.

I didn't have any gin or tonic, but I did have sparkling water and a lemon so I made do with that.  I admit, I'd have much preferred the former.

Butties.

I discovered that it's much harder to take a photo of a sandwich than I initially thought.  I left this until a little too late yesterday and was feeling hungry and wanted something quick, so both the sandwich and the photo were done quicker than is ideally needed for a decent butty and a decent shot!

I was trying to focus on the smaller detail such as the bread crumbs and tomato seed but I think to really achieve what I wanted  I'll need to dig out my macro lens.

My lighting set up is better than it used to be but still very amateur.  I have two bright desk lamps that I can alter the direction of, and white sheets of paper and material that I can use as a back ground and to bounce light off.  Over the next few weeks I hope to get something a little more workable set up!

Mug of Tea

A habit of mine is to make a mug of tea and take it where ever I go, quite often into the garden or on the school run.  Yesterday I made the most of the icy cold and sunshine to get this shot of my steaming hot cuppa.

Hot Chocolate makes me smile!

Well over a year ago I was given a "food photography" book and although I read through it ad took the odd picture I've not made as much of it as I hoped.  So this week at least I intend to concentrate on food and beverages.

For the past few weeks I've been enjoying hot chocolate with marshmallows in the evening, so this seemed the perfect way to start!

*Camping*

"Can we sleep downstairs mum?"  

Having properly cleared up the living room for the first time in a fortnight, the children seized the opportunity to have a 'slumber party' downstairs.  Bizarrely they were better behaved and more keen to stay in their *beds* than normal, well the older two were, as you can see, Squish was a little more active!

Amusingly, by about 9pm, The Boy had given up and asked if he could go back to his own bed because "they're keeping me awake,' and not much later Squish also asked if she could go in her own room.  Probably because she wanted to play with her teddies, rather than a desire to sleep I imagine....

Pudding!

Yesterday I had this urge for Christmas Pudding and nutmeg sauce.  A quick trip to the corner shop and  my desire was easily fulfilled.  By the time I'd taken this photograph the whole thing was rather cold, but thankfully I had plenty more to enjoy!

Point learned from this photo.  I need a plain white plate to take food photos on.

Streamers

I've been wanting to take a photo of these paper chains since the children and I started making them at the beginning of December. It's taken until now to do it.... 

Home made Christmas decorations are some of my favourite and I remembered making ones like these at church when I was little.  I'm not sure what kind of image I was going for but what I had in my head looked significantly more festive than this!  I think our living room is so yellow in colour and rather cluttered that to get a nice clear crisp picture with an interesting background is somewhat more difficult than I appreciated! 

We've decided to keep the streamers up until Squishes birthday so they're no longer Christmas decorations!

Bauble buddies

Last night at about 10pm I stood in the middle of my living room despairing at the surrounding mounds of clothes, toys, dirty dishes and paper (why are there always endless bits of paper everywhere?!)  Having made a little progress I sat down with a mug of hot chocolate and listened to the soothing sounds of the dishwasher, washing machine and tumble drier.  Just as I was about to head upstairs The Griff woke up - yippee!   Then I remembered that I hadn't taken a photo for that day and, not wanting to give up on my new challenge on day two I looked around me, and there was the Christmas Tree, still standing 15 days after Christmas.

The photos aren't fabulous, a little grainy and  clearly not all that well planned, but non the less, I quite like them.  I've put both up because I couldn't quite decide which I like best, slightly different composition.  What I really wanted was for my image to be much clearer in the baubles but it didn't quite work.  




I think if I were to do this again with forethought my main changes would be:

Better lighting.
Use a tri-pod.
Get some baubles that aren't scratched to pieces!!

I shall not be doing another shot like this for a while however, as I felt that I may as well take the tree down, so I did that until 2am....

I've decided that, unlike in 2009, for this year my challenge will be to take *at least* one photo a day for the blog, but sometimes I may put two or three up if it takes my fancy.... and, because I may want to concentrate on photoshopping this time around I will probably post the photo the next day rather than *on the day* like I did previously.


Don't forget to click on the images to view them better!

2013 brings new things.

Last year was a disaster when it comes to photography.  I really didn't do very well at taking any or being creative when I did!  This year I intend to go back to my photo a day challenge.  Clearly I've missed the first week of January but I'm sure we'll all cope with that....

So, my first photo of the year was taken this morning and introduces my littlest and newest member of the family.  The Griff.

And here's a badly photoshopped version to demonstrate that over the next year I intend to do this properly!