Great Southern Land

In honour of Australia Day I thought I'd share with you all some of my favourite photos showing this beautiful land I love.

Lake Sampsonvale, Qld

Sunset over Lake Sampsonvale, Qld

Caloundra, Qld

Glengallan Homestead, Southern Downs, Qld

Sunset over canefields, Far North Qld

Mount Glorious, Qld

Lake Perseverance, Qld

Townsville, Qld

Cattle, Darling Downs, Qld

Gum trees on the hill, Darling Downs, Qld

A Weekend in Black and White

Weekends are my favourite time for Instagram - both following what people are doing and sharing my own pics.

During the week I saw a beautiful black and white photo in my feed and decided I'd capture some moments in this classic medium. It was an interesting experiment - it only took a few pics for me to realise that the things that I would normally take a photo of because the colours were pretty were not going to work.

So I looked more closely at shades and texture - and shared some different subjects from my usual.

This was a fun experiment - I really liked the way these turned out.

Do you ever "shoot" in black and white? What's your fave Instagram filter?
 

Farm Photography

When I was up at my parents' place a few weekends ago, I got out the Nikkon and went around trying to find some new things to photograph. I particularly wanted to try small things - macro photos if you will. Well, it is hard. Clearly I need to do some sort of reading on the subject!

Ick alert: there is a photo of a daddy-long-legs spider below. I've put it at the bottom so you can skip if that freaks you out.

I am so proud of this one. Have you ever tried to take a photo of an ant? They never stop moving!

Do you see the bird? I have no idea how bird photographers capture anything. Talk about flighty subjects.

The moo-cows weren't being particularly friendly. But this shot does show quite well how horribly dry it is out there at the moment. Farmers need rain!

My mum has managed to successfully grow frangipani, despite zero-degree winters. I'm so impressed!

Tail light on an old car my brother keeps in the dairy. I'm not sure, but I think this may be the Falcon ute that I learned to drive on!.

Daddy Long-Legs Spider

Do you do any macro photography? Or animals? Any tips?

Globalise your instagram‏

 

[source: @surelysarah]

I love my instagram feed. With social media, your feed is only as good as the people you follow. Constant vigilance is required, careful curation needed to ensure that for the most part, only the cream of the crop is scrolling past your eyes. I am an enthusiastic follower but ruthless unfollower – if you aren’t posting what I like, why waste my time looking at it?

So are you sick of pictures of clouds and people’s feet? May I suggest Globalisation?

Recently I seem to have acquired some excellent international instagrammers and I’m thinking they’re too good not to share. I love the peek they give me into other landscapes, other places so exotic from my own Queenslander existence. They bring me daily delight and I hope they do for you too.

@58northphotography – Hebrides Islands

@editor_in_chief - Germany

@woody_chai – Bangkok

@vdubl - Hong Kong

@dguttenfelder - formerly North Korea, lately posts from the US

@newsjean - North and South Korea

@elinlia – Norway

@kitandnancy – The Netherlands

@sezyilmaz – Istanbul

Do you follow people from the world over? Who would you recommend?

Camera phone baby

My iphone crashed yesterday. Hard. Apps kept failing and then it had a total spack attack, trying to reboot itself and not quite being able to. It was like it was stuck in an infinite loop that only The Doctor could understand.

Anyhoo, tonight I'm backing up my photos (over 3000 of them now! WTF!), then the whole phone, then upgrading to the new iOS. Because that is a thing I should have done weeks ago.

While doing this, I noticed I take lots of photos of the same stuff. Like...

New buildings

 

Old buildings

 Stuff I see

 Stuff I wore

 

 The ground

 The ceiling

 What I ate

 What I drank 

What I baked

 And, of course, too many selfies,

What do you take photos of the most?

A Day at the Beach

Last Friday, I got a text from one of my NSW cousins.

We're coming to the Gold Coast for the long weekend! Come see us!

So I drove down there to see them and their darling children. So did three of my other cousins, their partners and kids. It was a warm day - the water was much too cold for me, an aclimatised Brisbanite, but the kids all went in the surf and the pool.

I simply sat and enjoyed the feel of the super-fine white sand between my toes, watching the seagulls, lifeguards, tourists and even the surf rescue chopper go by. Pity I wasn't quick enough with the Nikon for that one.

I couldn't get over how many tall highrises there are at Surfers Paradise now. Much different from when my parents took me there when I was young!

Next time I will definately swim. If it's over 30 degrees. Ok, 33.

New Toy

Since my parents are in Eastern Europe and paranoid about taking things worth money with them, mum has left me with her lovely Nikon DSLR camera. Don't ask me which one it is, all I know is that it has lots of buttons and I yell at it a lot because it won't let me take shots sometimes.

Now, I know some photography snobs look down their nose at anyone who uses a lovely DSLR with all the bells and whistles and continues to shoot on Auto (or the pretty little flower for close up things) but honestly? I looked up some photography stuff and it was all greek to me. I mean, I'm pretty smart but all the talk about aperture, depth of field etc really did not compute.

This weekend I got it out and played with it a bit. I took some stock photos for my Etsy store Little Moments Vintage, then went about the house and yard clicking happily.

 A lonely chair near the back fence. I have no idea where it came from or why it is there.

Playing with perspective.

Shadows - oooh!

 Don't my work shirts look so white in the spring sunshine?

 As you can see, some of my herbs are progressing better than others. you'll be happy to know I have transplanted the rocket in the hope some may actually survive.

I still can't get over the fact this camera has no trouble taking shots of things like flowers close-up on Auto.

Hubby working on a car - business as usual around here, whether it's ours or someone else's!

Today my other half abandoned me to go for a motorbike ride. After moping for a bit and loudly reminiscing about the times we used to go for drives together when we were dating, I pulled up my big girl pants and decided he deserved it after working hard all week. I was glad I didn't put on a sulk about it in the end, because when he came home this afternoon he was all grins and trying to tell me about how he gets a sense of 'calm' when he's riding the windy mountain roads. Bless. 

Anyways, I asked twitter what I should do all day to occupy myself and I got some wonderful suggestions - indulge in a mani/pedi, go window shopping, take myself to lunch, pull out an unfinished craft project. I identified a theme and decided to do something I always feel like doing on the weekend and never do - going to the coast. So I hopped in my little hatchback and drove myself up to Caloundra. Of course, I took the new toy with me.

I came to the conclusion that day-trips to the beach aren't as fun without someone with you. I was all self-conscious and a bit lonely with nobody to talk to. It reminded me of when my friend B and I used to pack some nibbles and go up there for the day, walk around, take photos and eat chips at Bulcock Beach. Maybe next time you're home from freezing ol' Blighty hey B?

What did you do this weekend? Do you think these pics are pretty good even for someone using Auto?!