Te Whata Family Photo Shoot

Today I was fortunate to photography my cousin's family.  My plan was to take them to the beach but unfortunately the weather wasn't so pleasant, the rain did eventually clear but the wind was too gusty.  So I took them to Civic Park where it was a little sheltered from the wind.  I enjoyed today's shoot, it gave me some practice as I haven't really done many family photos and also gave me the chance to catch up with them as we rarely see each other.  Thanks to you all for being such great models and to Mr T....thanks for the laughs.

Here is just a sneak peek for you of some of the images I took today.

I hope you like the edited version using a  'glamour' action Mrs T...really quite stunning .  I will forward all of the images to you soon.

Happy Easter!

Yesterday we had the pleasure of spending the day at the Hunter Valley Gardens with my parents.  They had arrived on Good Friday to spend a couple of days with us before school goes back.  As it was the Easter long weekend the Hunter Valley Gardens had some special easter activities for the kids.  Miss H had a ball! Master C seemed to enjoy himself at times, but unfortunately it was hard to capture a smile of his on camera, as it would come out, the grumps would appear.   Here are some photos that I love.

Tree Top Adventure Park, Minmi.

Today we treated the kids to a morning at the Tree Top Adventure Park.  They had previously been there with their cousins during the christmas holidays and since then have kept asking to go back.  They have an absolute ball there.  I think its a fantastic place to take them as it builds up their confidence.  Once they complete the track you can see the amazement in their eyes that they could actually go that high, or climb over the wobbly bridge. I love it when Miss H shouts out excitedly " I did it, I did it all by myself!".

Portrait Practice

This morning my daughter and I headed over to Scenic Drive, Merewether Heights where there is an old run down house situated on the edge of the National park. She was happy to be a model for me so I could practice some portrait photography. I had also recently been given this lovely old suitcase from a friend of mine to use as a photography prop (Thanks Amy), so I brought it along to get a couple of photos of Miss H with it and edit in an old photography style action. The only problem I had was that Miss H loved the suitcase and wanted it in every shot, she certainly loves her accessories. Miss H is going through an awkward phase when it comes to modelling naturally in front of the camera. She used to be so free, relaxed and it was as though the camera wasn't really there but now that she is getting older she seems to be more noticable of the camera and I get the awkward cheesy teeth clenched grin, so I've decided to get her out and about a bit more to get her back to being more relaxed around the camera. And you know, she had a ball this morning, I don't ever force her to have photos done, she enjoys it and most of the time puts her hand up to be part of it.

Sygna Shipwreck and Tin City

This morning I was up and out of bed by 3am.  Anyone who knows me, knows I LOVE my sleep so all I can say is that I was very keen to attend this Flickr meet as I've wanted to visit this area for quite sometime.   A group of fellow flickr sundancers met at 4.45am near the Stockton Dunes where we then jumped on board a 22 seater 4WD to take us out to the Sygna Shipwreck.  Unfortunately for us we had cloud cover and no sun actually turned up due to the bad weather but we were lucky enough for the rain to hold off until we finished at Tin City.  Tin City has four permanent residents.  I believe these residents must love the isolation....and the sand, lots of sand!  An interesting place to call your home that's for sure.  Here are some images taken this morning.

School Holiday Fun

Yesterday we caught up with some good friends of ours.  Miss I is a good friend of Master C, they are from the same class at school and have been friends since Year One.  I think my son has such a beautiful big heart, he always says to me because he's not allowed to marry me then he would like to marry Miss I when he is an adult as she is so pretty and so nice.  Through our children being friends I have been lucky enough to become friends with her mother, who is a wonderful mum to her kids, and such a great friend to have.

Thirlmere Train Works

I've been a little behind in my blogging, my apologies.....so I finally got myself back on the computer and have started processing all of my images over the past week.  Last Friday the kids and I travelled down to the Blue Mountains to visit my parents.  We had an enjoyable 4 night stay, I mean who wouldn't enjoy being cooked for again, and well looked after by my parents.

On the Sunday we spent the day with Oma and Opa and travelled down to Thirlmere Train Works.  Miss H and Master C hadn't been on a steam train before so I though it would be a good opportunity for them to go one.  Here are some images of my kids before the steam ride and ones during.  I've mucked around with a bit of editing with these and added an old style look to the photos that were taken on the train.