Let's explore the world!
The theme for this week has been suggested as ‘Wooden’.
I started doing some ideas using coloured pencils for a start (which I won’t show), but changed to just doing set-ups using the shavings of pencils.
Here is the final photo for this week (my submission).
Here are a couple of alternate versions that I didn’t end up using.
For those that are interested, these shots were set up on a white tile and lit by a single Lume Cube in a light tent.
Once again this week I challenge a friend to a photo challenge. This week the theme was “Blues”.
This could have meant a lot of things and I thought about all sorts of ideas. I dismissed ideas of musical instruments and feeling down.
One of the things I noticed early on was that my shaving cream came with a blue lid and had a blue tint to it. I wondered if I could light it in a way to get some interest out of it.
Here is what I came up with…..
This was a pretty basic set-up with the lid filled with cream and lit from underneath using a small continuous light (a LumeCube).
Here is also a variation that I shot. I like it a lot as it reminds me of some sort of dessert.
This is what the lid of shaving cream looked like after I left it for a few minutes.
That’s it for this week – next week the theme is “In my neighbourhood”.
During the “great lockdown of 2020” I challenged a friend for a light-hearted photo challenge for each week. The goal was to get our creative juices and give us something different to do during this difficult time. It also was meant to make us feel better as we are missing out on our normal travel photography opportunities.
There are just 2 simple rules: The photo must be new and taken without breaking the current lock-down regulations.
The first weekly challenge was themed “Shades of Grey” and my entry was table-top setup made of screws found in the shed. The light behind was initially intended to be the moon, but it turned out that it looked more like a sun or a star.
The theme for the second week was “Reflection”.
For this one, I deliberated a bit on what to choose and setup. I initially had thought of doing something with a set of mirrors that I bought a few years back to set up a large kaleidoscope for photography but settled on doing an infinite mirror type setup.
I started playing and found that I could turn the 2 bottles of hand sanitizer into as many as I wanted by adjusting the mirrors. This is what I came up with.
In this image, only the front 2 bottles are there, and the others are just reflections. For lighting, I used a LumeCube under each bottle – and that was all.
Just for reference, here is the setup used (sorry about the rough, hastily-taken, photograph)
This was a pretty straight-forward photo taken under natural light and then adjusted in a photo editor to my liking.
It is a portion of a box cover from a Monopoly set that I have that was sold in Australia around 1935. I still have most of the set, but the condition is a bit poor now. The markings seen in the photograph have been there for many years.
Before I settled onto the above image, I was thinking about using this image of an old Ricoh camera. I was not too sure about it as it does not shout ‘vintage’, but I did have fun making it and I like it a lot.
This shot also didn’t make the grade – but that’s OK as it was taken as a bit of a gag.
It is of my old Commodore 64 computer hooked up to a modern television set. The photo is made to look old but I didn’t have to try as I took it on my first digital camera that I got in 1997.
This the first camera that I bought as it had reached the almighty standard of taking 1024 x 768 pictures.
The shutter lag on this thing was terrible and it chewed through the batteries at an amazing rate, but it was still an great camera to have and it took lots of shots for me.
I was amused that when taking the above photo the camera had a whopping big 16 megabyte storage card in it.
The final shot for the week was just a detail shot of the keyboard of the Commodore 64 computer. I love to see all of the buttons that we no longer have on modern keyboards including ‘restore’. This is what we all seem want right now – some sort of way to get us back to ‘normal’ before the virus.
That’s it for this week. Let me know which photo you liked most for the themes.
The great news is that last month, Harley graduated as a fully certified guide dog!
As volunteers for the Royal Society for the Blind here in South Australia, we housed the dog as part of their “Bed and Breakfast” program. This means that we looked after Harley after-hours. On each weekday, we dropped Harley off to the trainers in the morning and then collected him after ‘school’.
We were delighted to be part of Harley’s training and to have his company at all times as we went through our regular life routines. There were a few times that we were able to take him to work. At the supermarket, he always got a lot of attention.
He is currently with his new client assisting her through life, and both are doing well together.
Well done Harley!
In the last week, we also had the pleasure of looking after Tommy for a few days in our home. In the picture above, he is taken a nap while keeping me company at work.
Tommy is a 14-week old Retriever/Lab cross and is still with his puppy educators for at least 12-14 months. He will then start his intensive training and will stay with a Bed & Breakfast boarder (maybe us with a little luck!).
Here is a short video of the mouth of the Onkaparinga River at Port Noarlunga on Adelaide’s south coast.
The river flows through the Adelaide Hills, through the Onkaparinga Gorge and Old Noarlunga town before emptying into the St. Vincent Gulf. The river’s aboriginal name is Ngangkiparri.
The area is well known for fishing, paddle-boarding, kayaking, surfing and swimming. It is around 1 hours drive from the centre of Adelaide.
Here is a photo of our local area, which shows the St. Paul’s Anglican Church at Montacute, South Australia.
This building was originally constructed in 1885 but was destroyed by bushfire in 1955 and then rebuilt.
The photo was taken with a DJI Air.
We were not blessed with the best weather whilst at the park earlier this week. I have managed to salvage some shots – and here are early some early previews.
Simon & Julie 