"an elegant tapestry of quotations, musings, aphorisms, and autobiographical reflections" (James Atlas)



Thursday, November 19, 2015

The Studio


Well, it's starting! The builders arrived this morning with a couple of trucks and equipment, and started to prepare the site Very exciting, even DH was excited. The happy feelings were momentarily dampened by the loss of some favourite shrubs (bottle brush, honeysuckle, cotoneaster), but I'll be able to get the honeysuckle and bottlebrush again. I've taken cuttings of the cotoneaster because you can't buy it here, it's considered a pest plant. But I like them, they're very pretty and the bees love them.
The old dog kennel was also removed. Wayne seems to think there won't be any more dogs. He's got another think coming!
I'm quite impressed so far with our builder, Mick from MM Constructions in Sunbury. Everything is progressing without fuss as planned, and with a little luck we should be at lockup stage by Christmas, and should be finished later in January. I've planned the layout and materials, just thinking about tables at the moment. Will check out ebay for a cutting table, bench height. More photos as the work progresses.

Monday, November 9, 2015

Photography course continued....what next?

Week 2 of attending Peter Ryan's photography course, and the theory is somewhat over my head. I've never been good with numbers, and according to Peter, numbers are the name of the game.
Well, ok, up to a point. If I started calculating everything before finally taking a shot, the moment would be lost. As in the case of this little fellow, who came visiting the other day. He kindly stayed for a while, so I could try out a few settings.
I can proudly say that I haven't used the AUTO function on my camera since I started. So that's a plus, I guess. I'm using the manual settings on my camera more, which is what I intended. Next week is the last theory session, then we go out and practise what we've learned.
I just found a travel writing course online, which looks interesting. I could combine two loves, writing and photography, might even get something published. I'd certainly have enough to write about the cruise we took earlier this year. I'd just have to be careful not to be too damning about some of my fellow countrymen...