San churros at glebe

replacement breakfast, lunch and afternoon tea! There goes my non chocolate diet.

Photography 101

I decided that I would take photography more seriously this year, well I made that one of my NY resolutions. So I decided to take Photography Classes with Focus 10 photography

The instructor, Andrew is quite a character with good stories and a wealth of experience when it comes to shooting so it was good to pick his brain about anything. 

Anyways, so it was a 3 week course where we learnt about our cameras a bit more, what I got out of it was 

- Greater appreciation about lighting, especially with the aid of reflectors

- My sb900 flash (previously I could not use it)

- Exposure and when to use it

- Composition for portraits and looking for interesting lines for landscape. 

- The discovery of the P mode on my camera. Did not know i had to use that when i used my flash for syncing purposes!

All in all, there were around 6-8 people on the course and we all got to know each other a bit and asked each other questions and were each other's models. I was sad to see that there was only one other Nikon-ian on the course, but i guess the canon guys were ok :)

So i'll put a few of my favourite photos up. We had a round up dinner last night where we showcased our top 30-40 photos over the last 3 weeks and we voted on each person's set of photos with a score out of 10. I ended up coming 2nd which was ok with me. 

Starting off with the other only Nikon-ian (is that right?) who had a beaut D700.

These were taken out on our day trip to Watsons Bay, Vaucluse House, Strickland House and the lighthouse near Watsons Bay. The weather was nice for shooting, a bit overcast and a bit rainy at times - but we had a good laugh. We had a nice couple from Perth to be our models for the lovey dovey shots at Vaucluse House

 

  

I'll post the second week's photos up soon. 

Toodles

mw

Week 7 - "I wanna dance" photo challenge @ i heart faces photography

The good folk at i heart faces photography have set this week's challenge to be 'i wanna dance' and i immediately thought of the fantastic choreographed spectaclar at my friends wedding. The groomsmen and bridesmaids needed to buy some time for the groom and bride to do the final reveal and they entertained the crowd by way of a choreographed dance to the late and great Michael Jackson. 

 I especially like this photo because this is the beginning of the dance and they've just arrived in position and the groomsmen in the front looks like he can't wait for it to start. This particular move was the alternate bopping...crowd definately loved it. Have a look at all the other funny and cute entries on the i heart faces website. 

 bye

mw 

Balmain - Kazbah on Darling

For our weekly dinners, we decided to splurge to celebrate Lish's engagement so we mosey on down to Kazbah at Balmain, handily a stone throws away from pretty much all of us. This was the first time I'd been there, so I was quite keen to try it out and see what all the fuss is about. I hear it's fantastic for breakfast as well, the owner told me that for groups, its best to book. 

Anyways, here we go. A few of us car pooled and got to the restaurant a bit late, (sorry m.t) where we were greeted by the owner and told of the thursday special which was 2 courses for $40 or 3 courses for $45. $5 for dessert sounded like a bargain, why wouldn't you do the 3 courses?

Whilst chatting, I took a few happy snaps of our surroundings before our entree came out:. Firstly, i loved their decor, their plates were so colourful. It was fate that Lish matched her plate, or a happy coincidence.The bread came out and we munched away, well everyone else did but me, as I'm trying to reduce my carb intake.

The place was decked out for Valentines Day, so I took advantage and played around with some depth of field shots with the v. photogenic Nelisa :) and btw, that is a compliment.

Soon, the entree came out - as part of the deal you must get the mezze plate which was delightful anyways. On the mixed mezze plate was i think: 

Dips Plate -Hummus, Babaganouj, Taramasalata and Breads, Fried Cauliflower with Eggplant  Jam, Chickpea Battered Zucchini Flower Stuffed with Walnut and Feta, Muhamara Sauce, Calamari Rings, something like Tabouli and something like cous-cous. I don't remember - please feel free to correct me.

Mains were pretty nice and tasty. Two ladies chose the Pan-Fried Duck Breast with Falafel, Honey Baked Quince and Sweet Potato Chips, another lady had the Kingfish with Paella Pilaf, Preserved Lemon and Coriander Gremolata and i chose the Grain Fed Sirloin with Crushed Herb Potatoes, Za'atar and Lima Beans Pork Belly, Cardamon Jus

Next stop was dessert, we decided to share 2 desserts amongst ourselves. we chose the Arabian Dessert Plate for 2 and  Kazbah Bomb for Two - Turkish Delight Ice Cream, Blueberries flamed with Kurrant Vodka. Pretty interesting dessert plate, from memory it was: watermelon & nougart salad, chocolate filled cigar, milk pudding and the last dessert looked like a macaroon but the top layer was rhubarb then goats cheese? and then it seemed like it was brown sugar. that last one was my favourite. The Kazbah Bomb wsas quite a spectacle, v. interesting the blue ring that engulfed the dessert, the girls were surprised everytime they found some turkish delight in the ice cream. 

We had a lovely night chatting and eating, so much so that we were the last guests at the restaurant, so I roamed around and took more photos - i think the owner was getting worried where I would be posting the photos.... :) I did like the decor of this place, you can tell there is a big middle eastern/north african influence.

Until next week girls...

Week 6 - We heart kisses photo challenge

So this week's challenge is to capture moments about kissing. The photo that I've chosen is capturing the attempt of kissing with one keen little boy and one not so keen little boy. I especially like how there is someone helping the attempted kissing by positioning one of the boys in the most optimum position but the other will have none of it. We did manage to get them to lean towards each other, but I thought this was much funnier. Kids are funny aren't they.

Hope everyone this week has an enjoyable time, enjoying Valentines Day and Chinese New Year. Check out the other contestants at i heart faces.

toodles!

He put a ring on it...

Probably won't get the title if you don't know Beyonce's 'Single Ladies (Put a Ring on it) song...

Anyways, congrats must go out to Lish & Wiggie for getting engaged last week! Lish being sneaky asked all her friends to guess what the happy news was, I was at first apprehensive as there was no punctuation in my sms to denote if it was a happy "guess what!" or a sad "guess what...". Punctuation does make a difference people. 

V. happy for these two, its been a long time coming but I'm so glad that its 2010 that they have decided to get engaged! Caught up with them at the interesting cafe in Netown Satellite Expresso. Will post more photos soon -ish. 

Couple of photos for the happy couple. Wiggie designed such a beautiful ring, a diamond surrounded by their birthstones. I tried to also capture wiggie's hand in the background. Next shot of the engaged, soon to be 'Wiggies'. Look how the shiny the ring is :) 

nitey nite!

Moving at a snails pace...

Mixed metaphors, i love it. Mixed metaphor being the turtle in the below picture symbolising my slowness in blogging and getting through the volume of photos that I have on my hands. I have photos all the way back from August when I went to Noosa. 

Anyways, the photo taken below was shot at Australia Zoo where we didn't see Bindy Irwin unfortunately, but we did see some incredible animals including this cute little/big thing. I can't remember if it was a tortoise or turtle...i'll guess and say tortoise...

I will get to the 2000+ photos and will process these soon. slow and steady will win the race!

toodles

mw