Stuff and Nonsense

What a week its been! We've done more cattle work; I've had my first newborn/ family portrait photo shoot; I've been to Food Tales with Julie Goodwin; we've been to our neighbours place for dinner; my old girl dog has had to have x-rays on her leg and our boy dog got his cast off his broken leg; I have also been doing my courses and taking 'other' photos!

My first newborn/ family portraits were with friends and their 20 day new little Mr. He was a wriggly, squirmy, unsettled little man who made me work HARD for every shot I got! I had all the appropriate 'boy' props at the ready. However as he was unsettled, they went out the window as I had to capture him when he was quiet and that was when he was being held. I still had alot of fun doing the shoot though and I am excited to do my next one on Saturday!

Here is a family shot from the other day.

On Friday, Julie Goodwin was in town as a part of the Food Tales promotion that is on at the moment. It was a lovely morning. We listened to Julie's story about being on Materchef and how that experience has impacted on her life. We also discussed memories we have that are built on/ around food. Julie asked us all to write something relating to food and she is hoping that we put it on her blog. I thought that I wiould share my story here as well...

"It was a Saturday morning and there was a buzz in the air. I, being four, had no idea why mum and dad were so busy. I just kept running and playing, until I heard "Suzanne, its time for you to have a bath". I was instantly confused as the sun was still out. "But why Mummy?" "Because we have people coming for dinner." No names were mentioned, just 'people'. I enter the house and am greeted with the aroma of yumminess! Mum HAD been busy and the delicious smells attested to that. "Right" she said "Go and have a bath and put on the dress that I have ironed and put on the end of your bed. And don't waste time!" That's when I noticed Dad in his suit. Wow, I thought, I wonder who 'people' are?
I hurriedly had my bath, donned the dress and re-entered the kitchen. Mum finished smoothing the top of a cheesecake and put it in the fridge when she reached for my hair brush and roughly plaited my hair.
It was now time for mum to get ready. "Stay out of the fridge Suzanne, don't touch anything." That cheesecake was all too tempting, so I had to put my finger in it! I didn't realise that I would leave a tell-tale sign that I hadn't obeyed mum. She reappeared looking lovely and proceeded to get a 'tupperware' container and lid and then she poured cream into the container. She added a couple of teaspoons of icing sugar to the cream, put the lid on the container and started shaking it around like mad. She was walking around, still shaking the container, observing the table; looking at my hair, ensuring everything was just so. Then the doorbell rang. It seemed almost simultaneously, the lid came off the container and suddenly mum was covered in cream! It was everywhere!
To this day, I cannot remember anything else of this night; no idea who 'people' were; no idea what we ate. I cannot even remember if I got into trouble for touching the cheesecake. My memory of this night, ends with mum covered in cream!"

Here is a photo of everyone who attended and Julie Goodwin

And of course there was a Super Moon. Here is my shot of it

Hope you have a fabulous day!

Winter!

It is FINALLY here! It may not be here for long, however it IS HERE and I am LOVING it! I have even turned off 1 air conditioner in the house! I love being able to wear a T-Shirt and not feel sweat running down my face, back, legs. THAT is a most unpleasant feeling that I experience often- too often. I cannot believe that I live in one of the hottest places in Australia, when I feel the heat so terribly.

I have been busy trying to 'brand' Country Pix Photography. This means coming up with a good watermark, and website banner etc etc. I find this really difficult. REALLY DIFFICULT! I am doing an E-Course on blog and website design and how to incorporate them into the one site. I really like the idea of that! I thought I was being clever at the start of the year when I bought my domain name, by doing a website on the 'cheap'. Well, that has proven to be such a nightmare that I relented and contacted a friend of mine and he is 'fixing' it all for me. My domain name will easily 'point' to my website and he is going to help me rebuild my site. This means I can EASILY have a blog tab. Sounds great, however I have to BRAND myself first and that is the difficult part. I don't want to be too limiting with the images that I highlight, however I have to be real and accept that most of my images are landscapes. The name of my business is limiting enough, without being limited by the majority of images I "get to" take. I would love to do some weddings, birthday parties and other events but my location restricts me somewhat.

I will share some of my banner designs at a later date, when I have a couple that I can say that I like and that I would be happy to showcase. For now- just know I am working on something special (hopefully).

We've been busy here- as usual. We preg tested 1623 cows in two days last week! The build up and aftermath have been just as busy as those two days- except I don't have the vet and two other day workers to feed! I picked up my camera for the first time in a week yesterday when a friend and her daughter visited yesterday. Meet Lillie-Mae Ruby

I ordered my costume for my birthday party today! I am going as the Queen of Hearts! I have ordered the dress, a wig, a crown, special stockings AND I am on back order for some special shoes

courses!

We all know that I love learning! However, this time I must be mad! I have signed up and paid for three (yes that's right- THREE) courses. I am mid way through the Proofreading and Copyediting course, plus I have started an on-line photography/ photoshop course AND I paid for and started an E-Course on blog and website design, including coding! I MUST BE MAD- as if I don't have enough on anyway!?!

I am very excited to be doing all these courses. Any course is a good course I reckon! Although, I am uncertain how I will get them done!!

We are pregnancy testing our cows this week so we will be busy, busy, busy. Not sure if I will get to do any course work, which will be a shame.

Mr Fabulous had his birthday Saturday. We had about 25 people over for a pig on the spit! We also had roast lamb and roast chicken as I am not a big fan of pork, with roast vegies. Some wonderful friends made a beautiful pavlova and coffee cheescake for dessert. YUMMO! It was a lovely night and week end.

Anyway, here are some photos I took of a sunset the other day



And here is a shot of Eureka Waterhole, a waterhole on the back of our property, that is part of Eastern Creek. I decided to try it in balck and white also and I think I like it better.





Have a great evening!

Marketing!

I have been busy preparing marketing material for Country Pix Photohgraphy! I have created brochures, magnets and a new facebook timeline.I have also been working on other administration paperwork, however I won't bore you with any of that!

Here is the new facebook timeline



Here is the outside of the brochure



And here is the inside of the brochure



The brochures are getting printed at the moment which is rather exciting!

I am starting an E-Course on Blog Design and from memory I think it has other web related information contained in it also. Watch this space as my blog may get 'revamped' soon :-)

Anyway, that's me for the day

Have a great evening!

MOJO

I'd lost my photo mojo. I think it is as a result of being busy and tired. I was tired, like bone tired, and when I get like that I can't see the forest for the trees, so nothing inspired me to reach for the camera. I still took it with me, however not one pic was taken for over a week. It was disheartening, depressing and detrimental for my confidence.

Then I saw this



Which became this



And then became this



That sunset certainly aided my mojo to return!

Photography group met in Mt Isa Saturday night at the observatory. It was a fantastic outing and all who came along thoroughly enjoyed themselves. It was incredible being able to look through powerful telescopes and see Jupiter and its three moons, as well as Saturn. All the canon users were able to attach their cameras to the telescope and take photos of the other planets. The astonomer man uses a canon camera so he had an adaptor. So us Nikon users missed out :-( Never mind, an adapter is on the wish list and I am hopeful to get one before our next outing there!

I did manage to get this shot of the moon though

Thank goodness for bullbars!

Coming home the other day I hit a wallaby. I had absolutely no chance of missing it as it came out of the scrub a million miles an hour. It hit our bullbar. Thankfully we had a bullbar otherwise we would have had a very badly damaged front end! In fact, the wallabt hit so hard it dinted the bullbar and shifted it about 6 inches to the right! That meant that the end of the bullbar, the part that curves around to the wheel arch on the passenger side, was rubbing on the tyre, whenever we hit a bump. The road we were travelling was VERY bumpy! Luckily we came across my F-I-L! He had been minding the place for us whilst we were at the wedding and the funeral. We were both driving home on the same day, on the same road! Mr Fabulous hooked a 'snatch'n'strap' to the left side of our bullbar and connected it to the centre upright of F-I-L's bullbar. He then put our car into reverse, whilst the other car remained stationary, and 'pulled' the bullbar back across the car so that the tyre wouldn't rub. Here are a couple of shots of the damaged bullbar.





THANK GOODNESS FOR BULLBARS!!!

I had a play around in photoshop with a couple of pics yesterday afternoon. I am having a bit more fun with post processing and it seems to be the 'way of the world', unfortunately.

I turned this




Into this



And this



Into this



And this



Into this




What do you think?

Have a great evening xx

May 8th

Well I knew it had been awhile since I wrote, however I hadn't anticipated that it was THAT long ago!

Its been so long I don't even know where to start!

I do know that we've been busy- very busy. We are managing the worst drought that Mr Fabulous has lived through. We have destocked by approximately 48 deck (that's about 8 road trains) since mid February. So whilst our coastal counterparts have been whinging about the rain, we've been praying for it. It seems the Great Dividing Range lived up to its name this year and clearly divided Queensland into wet and dry areas.

We had a wedding to attend a couple of weeks ago. Mr fabulous was Best Man. It was a lovely day and we saw two of our best friends 'get hitched'. I am still working on some pics, so watch this space! Here is a sneak peak though




Unfortunately, the night before the BIG day, my Grandfather passed away. I did get to see him whilst we were 'on the coast' before he slipped into a never ending dream, which I will be forever grateful for. The day after the wedding, we went to my in-laws place and we stayed there until the burial. This gave us some time to relax and for me to take photos. We went to Josephine Falls one day, which is where I spread my Fathers ashes. This pic is taken from the base of 'Dad's tree'.



Here is another shot of the water near 'the' tree



Whilst at Julatten, I was lucky enough to tag along to my MIL's photography group day. It was at a passsionfruit farm in the Daintree and it was stunning! Here are a few of my favourite shots of the day.







Yesterday, on our home we picked up a new dog. We added a female red kelpie to our doggy family. She is approximately 7mths old and is settling in to the Caleewa way of life very well. We named her Opal and I think she likes her new humans.