Kathryn February 26th, 2011

It’s true…. I have become a member of the Bonds Baby Bandwagon….

Over the past few weeks on Facebook I have seen many links appearing, saying
“I just entered my little bub into the 2011 Bonds Baby Search. See how cute ‘insert childs name’ looks and remember to vote when the polls open on 28/02/2011″

I debated and debated …… but just for a bit of fun, I entered Josh in the competition! I would love you to go to the Bonds Baby Search website and vote for the cutest kid… Of course it would be great if the cutest kid was my baby, but if it’s not then that’s ok! I know several others who have entered their babies as well, and I’ve looked through the gallery…. all I can say is I’m glad I’m not judging the competition!

Isn't he cute!?

Just so you know how it works – on Monday 21 March they announce the shortlist – The Shortlist is the top 50 babies as chosen by Bonds. It will be announced along with the People’s Choice Top 10. Then on April 4 they announce 10 winners, including 2 peoples choice winners.

I’m not the sort of Mum who believes in entering their child in every baby competition known to man… I am completely aware that I have rose coloured Mummy goggles on when I look at my boy, and he’s probably not as cute to everyone else as he is to me… so really I’ll be completely surprised if he comes out of this as a Bonds baby – but hey, it’s worth a try!

Also taking polls on which theme you like better… this one or the other one?

And if you haven’t already and would like to receive updates of our blog (and Dallin’s Flickr feed) by email then just subscribe using the box at the top right hand side of this post….

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dallin February 2nd, 2011

Just Starting Out

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

Last night as I was doing some Wii Fit and Kathryn was organising and ordering some photos, we realised it was exactly one year since I had received my DSLR. So, in honour of my photographic journey over the past years, and especially this last year, I wanted to highlight this photo – the beginnings of Joshua’s photographic journey.

Ok, sure, he has a few issues of technique to sort out. But I think he’s doing marvelously well for picking it up by observation only. I’m actually quite impressed that he made the link between Grammy’s camera (this pink one) and mine (which requires looking through the viewfinder).

Joshua will be 18 months old in a couple of weeks. It’s hard to imagine where all that time has gone – it has been so quick and so wonderful.

I just wanted to put in another reminder about my flickr photostream. I’m trying to upload photos there regularly. But the best way to keep up (if you want to keep up ) is probably through RSS. I’ve set up a feedburner feed which combines my flickr feed and this blog, so you can keep up with all things Howes at one convenient location. If you don’t use RSS (including things like Google Reader and iGoogle homepage) then you can even subscribe by e-mail. Click on through to HowesThat Feeburner to check it out. And you’ll never miss one of Kathryn’s inspirational posts again!

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dallin June 27th, 2010

Lunar Eclipse

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

In the game of Hearts, Shooting the Moon is a risky and tricky strategy which can pay off very well, or have dire consequences if the desired result is not achieved.

Fortunately, taking photos of the moon does not come with such disastrous consequences, but it can still be quite tricky to do. The moon is very bright, but surrounding it is complete darkness. Digital cameras try to measure the light across the whole scene to get a properly exposed picture. Unfortunately, with such an unbalanced scene, this means the the moon will be very over-exposed, and retain almost no detail.

This is one occasion where shooting in Manual mode (if available) is almost the only way to capture a reasonable picture. The camera wanted to take this picture with a shutter speed of 1/15th of a second. Even with image stabilisation, there is no way I could even get a clear picture fully zoomed in (at 250mm) with that slow a shutter speed (I need to get a tripod!). But, the moon would also have been completely blown out with no detail in it.

To capture this shot I had to increase the shutter speed to 1/640th of a second – 40 times faster than what the camera thought would be good! For those photographers out there, that’s just over 5 stops less light. Exposure compensation on my camera only let’s me adjust by 2 stops (up or down), so without dialing in all of my own values in Manual mode, I wouldn’t have been able to get anything like this. Looking at the settings now, I probably should have adjusted the Aperture, but that’s a story for another day.

Earlier in the evening I also caught this image of the moon rising over the clouds.

I was in a rush when I took this, so I didn’t have time to adjust the settings as I’d have liked to, and the pic isn’t as good as it could have been. That said, it was a very beautiful moment, and I was fortunate to see it and have my camera on hand to capture it, even if the capture isn’t perfect.

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dallin March 5th, 2010

Generations

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

Every 3 weeks Canon has a competition to give away an EOS 500D camera. It’s called the Hero Chain, and is a part of Canon’s Photochains. There is a theme, and anyone can submit a photo representing their interpretation of that theme in some way. Each person who submits a photo also tags something in that photo, which would be the next theme if they win.

The current theme is ‘Generations’. I was planning on doing something slightly odd or different for this theme, but when I got this photo of Joshua and his great-grandfather, I knew it was the one for me to enter. I am really happy with how it turned out in black and white, too. There are some really good entries, but I really do think that this is up there near the best of them. So, I’m not expecting to win, but I’d be grateful for anyone who can go and vote for me!

You can see my entry here on page 2. It’s unfortunate that you have to register with Canon World of Eos to be able to vote (but, I’ve never received ANY mail from them after signing up).

And of course, if there’s another photo which you like better and fits the theme better, please vote for that. Yes I’d love to win, but not if someone else is more deserving!

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dallin February 21st, 2010

Captain Josho

Originally uploaded by D@lbo

As I have mentioned previously, I enjoy taking photos. Well, I’d been looking into getting a nicer camera for a while, and I finally convinced myself to buy a Digital SLR in January. I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, so I found a Canon EOS 400D on eBay for $400. Considering this is what our Olympus u830 cost when we got it a few years ago, I thought it was a reasonable deal.

Anyway, I won’t bore you with too much information about the camera. But it is really nice to have a much better camera, and while an EOS 400D is no where near a professional level, just using a DSLR makes me feel like a better photographer. And the quality of the shots (when I get them right, or close to right) is just way better than most of what our Olympus gives us.

I’ve had the camera for three weeks now, and I decided I should start doing something with the pictures that I like. So, here I present the first one I’m uploading to Flickr, of Joshua being captain of the washing basket boat! He’s such a good little boy!

Posting a blog entry directly from Flickr is pretty simple, so if you don’t have the time or patience to check my Flickr stream very often, I’ll try to highlight some of my extra favourites here on Howesthat!

Til next time…

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dallin September 2nd, 2009

I’ve spoken before about my enjoyment of taking photos. When I got my first digital camera, I would often take pictures of flowers. Our neighbours had some roses and some birds of paradise, and I would spend some time over there trying to take some pictures. I would then come back and attempt to make a digital collage on the computer. It never quite worked out as well as I hoped, but I still enjoyed it.

Lately I have been rediscovering flowers. I took a bunch of flower photos a few weeks ago when my niece, Lady, was here visiting from Sydney. She is 3, and can already take great photos! I have also now discovered some Irises in our backyard, that mum planted who knows how long ago!

We went to my parents (Grammy and Papi)’s house several times this day. I noticed this caterpillar the first time we came in, and he was there the entire day, and eventually managed to eat this entire flower!

The Caterpillar ate the entire flower!

We went for a walk up at Morialta, and I was on the lookout for things to photograph. I know this post is meant to be about flowers, but this mushroom is too good to pass up. It was just at the edge of the path, hidden behind some grass and other foliage. It was as if it was in an entirely different world.

A tiny Mushroom

Kathryn noticed this one day when we were out walking – this blossom was caught in some sort of a web, and was just floating there. It would spin when the wind blew.It was a very pretty sight, and this photo barely does it justice.

A floating Blossom

This one was also up at Morialta. I had a good look at a wattle tree, and discovered several of these ball things, which I had never seen before. t kind of looks like it might turn into a typical Wattle yellow puff ball, but it is enormous compared to the other ones. Can anyone enlighten me?

A Wattle something

I spotted this growing in the back yard while Kathryn was in hospital with Joshua. I’d never noticed it before, and it looked very interesting. Mum informs me that it is the flower from an Aloe Vera plant. So, now you know, there is more to them than just the green spiky bits and cooling gel.

An Aloe Vera flower

I spotted these in the garden of the house next to Grammy and Papi. I couldn’t get over how sharp the petals looked, until someone pointed out that they are curled, which gives them the pointy appearance. But I think these are some of the prettiest flowers I have ever seen, especially when it comes to ‘regular’ shaped flowers (ie, ignoring lilies, tulips, irises, birds of paradise, etc).

Stunning!

It had been raining before I got a change to go out and see these blue irises (the white ones come up first). Their shape allows them to catch perfect drops of water in some very interesting places. I took plenty of photos, and would have taken more, but I had to come back inside to look after a home and family.

Blue Iris

Click the continue link to see some more shots of the irises and red/yellow flowers (someone needs to tell me what they’re called!)

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dallin July 5th, 2009

I have always enjoyed taking photos, but I have never done very much of it. For a long time, the biggest problem was probably the waste of film and money associated with developing it. Because so few photos could betaken on a roll of film, and developing a roll of film was so expensive, I was always very reluctant to take a photo.

Thankfully I live in the era of the digital revoultion, and it’s fantastic! Since I got my first digital camera (about 2001), I have had more freedom to take photos, and attract less criticism from my older, female sibling. For Christmas 18 months ago, mum got me a new digital camera, an Olympus u830. I’ve been really impressed with it – it’s not a proffessional unit, but for a point and shoot it does a great job.

Recently, Kathryn has begun a ‘Photo-a-day’ project – taking a photo of something every day, and recording some brief journalling about the event. This has led to taking photos of some more random and odd events. It has also led to taking more photos in general. A lot more. So with all of that disclaimer and introduction, I want to share a few photos that I have taken over the last few months. I won’t commit to posting photos regularly (clearly I’m not good at updating our blog), but I’m going to try!

A ladybug on the front wall at home

The RAA came to look at Kathryn’s car on this day, and while I was out the front, I noticed a whole heap of lady bugs on the front wall. I took a few pictures of them, but I think this was my favourite one. These lady bugs were all quite orange, rather than the more traditional red. It was pretty cool though. And then that afternoon, we heard the school kids out there finding and looking for them.

The Adelaide Temple

This is a picture of the Temple on the day that Tracey and Jonathan were married (May16th). It rained a bit through the day, but there was some blue sky in the morning, allowing for some lovely Temple shots like this one. I love the Temple, and I love photos of the Temple, and this is one of my new favourites.

If anyone is interested in full-sized copies of any of these or other photos, I’d be glad to e-mail them to you.

*Edit* – I’ve just added a simple way for me to add new photos to the random banner up the top, so you should hopefully see some new pictures in there if you refresh a few times, too!

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