I Clicked It Up A Notch - Muddy Princess

So I totally pinched this idea from HERE but I knew I would have no trouble getting Charlotte to help me with this!

It took a lot of convincing to get her to stop actually! 

I'll be posting the rest when I'm finished editing them but for now here is a sneak peek at one of my favourites :D

I'm submitting this one for the I Clicked It Up A Notch Photography Challenge

It's not perfect but I've definitely "clicked it up a notch" lately in becoming more comfortable shooting in full manual, it really does make a huge difference if you're brave enough!!
Ps. No dresses were harmed in the making of this shot =D 

B&W Wordless{ish} Wednesday - My Baby Nephew

 A few photos of my adorable nephew for your viewing pleasure :)

 Doesn't he look peaceful :)

 Milky lips :)

 If babies came like this I'd order another one for sure! (In fact, I'd rather be in labour for 9 months than go through pregnancy again *shudder* But thats a story for another day!!)

 I bet he's dreaming of puppies chasing butterflies under a rainbow :) Or milk.

I shared this one before but it deserves a little re post, it's may fav :D

This is my little William's John Deere truck I got him for his first birthday :D You can see his photo shoot in it HERE. I love those photos of Will :)


This was the first time I've photographed a newborn (well, he was 4 weeks), other than my own but I didn't have my DSLR back then! I think I did an ok job, my sister in law said she cried when she looked through them so I must have done something right!

  


Happy Wednesday!!

Happy Easter!

 Well, that's Easter over for another year!! Phew!

It was a 5 day weekend here, with Anzac day falling on Easter Monday, so today (Tuesday) was the Anzac public holiday.

Our kids got WAY TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE!

An egg hunt at home, an egg hunt at Grandma's and then today we had my husbands family over....which meant a MASSIVE egg hunt for 10 children under 8 =O

Well, William was asleep and my youngest nephew is only 2 months old, but still, it was crazy!

William's first egg :) 

 I'll eat chocolate before 7am if I want to, what are you gonna do about it???

 My bunny girl

Hubby trying to hold Charlotte off so William could find some, lol. She seriously could not help herself, she had to grab them ALL!

 My Easter babies :) Notice the difference in the egg collections? LOL
(Happy Monday - Siblings and Shutter Love Tuesday - Easter)


  

 My pretty girl hunting for eggs at Grandma's house :) Do you love her pettiskirt and shoes? Yellow is her favourite colour :)

So sweet :) I love this photo!

Michelle and Charlotte's Easter Cake of Awesomeness =D

Washing down his eggs with milk, LOL

(excuse the pinlights, this was one of those 'quick get the camera!' moments!)

HAPPY EASTER!!

Hello Moon

On Monday night when hubby got home from the gym he told Charlotte and I to go outside and look at the moon. Apparently he could see a face on it....but we couldn't, lol.

Anyway I thought it would be a good chance to try and get a good moon shot, I've never tried before and wasn't sure if my zoom lens would be good enough!

I learned I can take a nice photo of the moon with my kit zoom lens :D

(canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4-5.6 IS)

I'm pretty pleased with how they turned out, I didn't think I would get as much detail :)

  

The Scuttling of the ex HMAS Adelaide!!!!

On Wednesday the 13th of April 2011 we witnessed a little piece of history :)

The ex-HMAS Adelaide was scuttled off Avoca Beach NSW to create an artificial reef that will hopefully become a popular world class dive site. This has been over 10 years in the making and was originally supposed to be sunk in March last year but was delayed by a small group of protesters. Which I won't go into because it makes me MAD. lol

Here she is sitting off Avoca Beach on the day of the scuttling:

A small indication of how many people came to watch. The beach was PACKED. Thousands and thousands and thousands of people made the trip to see her scuttled.

The Willy Man being cheeky :D He thought it was a good idea to throw sand all over our mat.

"Look Mum there's the ship"

Camera Envy.

The beach was lined with camera's of various degree's of impressiveness, lol

This was by far the most impressive I saw, his arms must have been aching by the end, he didn't move for hours!

Some of the crowd, my children entertaining themselves and the police presence to make sure everything ran smoothly (and that the protester's kept out of the way!!)

 It was a gorgeous day, many people took to the water to cool down :)
This also gives an idea of how far it is from the shore (and what a good job my kit zoom lens did, lol. I had it zoomed all the way in and wasn't using a tripod so I think it did an alright job, which is good because I have no plans to buy a proper zoom lens any time soon!)

Some people will do anything to get a good view!! SO dangerous!

waiting waiting waiting

The scuttling ended up being delayed by an hour and 20 minutes. Just after the 5 minute warning flare went off a HUGE pod of Dolphins swam under the ship and started to feed!! So the charges had to be reset and the waiting game began.

William was a little over it when all of a sudden...

KA-BOOM!!

I SO wasn't ready!! I'd been standing in position for hours and I'd finally put my camera down when the fireworks went off! You should have heard the gasp from the crowd!

It was spectacular!! Blue and red fireworks and then a big fireball went up! Which I missed because I turned around to check on William, lol

It happened very very quickly, I'd say around a minute and a half for it to be completely gone!

Going...going...

 Going...

GONE.

All that remained was a cloud of smoke :)

It was a fantastic day, we all really enjoyed it and I even got interviewed by the local news (which I don't think got shown thank goodness!)

And the best part is my Dad will be amongst the first to dive her in about 2 weeks! *Hi Dad!*
I'll be sure to share his photos (if he lets me :P)

If you would like to read more about the artificial reef project go HERE

If you want to see the first underwater shots of her taken by the survey dive team go HERE

Happy Tuesday!