Tickle My Fancy Project - Day 1

As I mentioned in my last post, I had a bit of a creative lull late last year, but I've found my photography mojo again and am challenging myself to do another challenge.

The theme is going to be "Tickle My Fancy".According to the Urban Dictionary, the phrase "tickle my fancy" means "to enjoy, adore, or be satisfied by". This means I'm going to photograph the things which I spy with my little eye each day (or week - whatever tickles my fancy). The photos will no doubt be shot with a mix of cameras, from my Canon 5DII, 7D, G12 or iPhone.

I envisage the project will be a cross between a 365 (photo a day challenge), and the Gratitude Challenges which seemed popular last year. In any case, my project is going to be about the things that make me larf.

Day 1 begins with the new lego house for my collection of minifigs! My brother and sister-in-law gave it to me for Christmas, and I finally got to play with it tonight, lining up all the little dudes in their cubicles - might keep the little buggers in check. I LOVE that this lego house now gives me a place to keep and organise my little lego figurines!

Adam and Loz, thank you! THIS tickles my fancy :)

Reunited with my Cokin filters!

The bag of vintage camera gear my parents recently dragged out of their garage contained my two old Pentax film cameras as well as a forgotten stash of Cokin filters. Whoohoo! It was like opening a little treasure chest from the past.

In the days before I'd even heard of Photoshop, I used Cokin filters to overlay all sorts of effects to my photos. The plastic plates slotted into a bracket that screwed in to the end of the lens. There were coloured filters, neutral density filters, graduated filters to make skies really blue, and my favourite - the starburst filter!

I remember taking hundreds of pictures back then, testing out the various filters in different lighting conditions, and on many unsuspecting suspects. Picture fruit bowls in sepia. And orange. And graduated blue. Noice!

The Cokin bracket is too small to fit on to any of my current Canon lenses, but the filters work fine when I hand hold them in front of the G12...

Check out the starburst below! This opens up a whole new world of opportunities for the G12. Happy days! Or shouuld that be rose coloured glasses?

15 days in and loving the 365 Challenge!

15 days in, and I'm loving getting back into the challenge of taking a photo a day. It's a great way to learn all of the (many) functions of the G12. What a snazzy little camera! Talk about the perfect present for me!

Here are some of the photos from the second week of my 365 of 40 challenge. The week started last Sunday at Byron Bay, where I got to test out the Miniature filter. It basically keeps a horizontal slit across the middle of the image sharp, and blurs the top and bottom, to give a tilt-shift effect. Apparently looking down on subjects provides the best results....

In this photo, I tried out the macro function, which I'm loving! I'm still stalking the Canon 100mm f/2.8 L macro lens for my SLR bodies, but the in-camera macro feature on the G12 is pretty damn good for a compact camera. Hand-made Italian bickies, anyone??

More macro fun, as I reminisced about Thai food and this model of a Thai food cart we bought in Bangkok over Christmas. Love the detail in the photo considering it was all about 10cm tall.

Trying out a bit of food photography, with a *very* tasty hot chocolate from our local Italian gelato bar. Hot chocolate so thick you could stand the spoon up in it...loving the fact that the G12 is small enough to fit in my handbag, and whip out at restaurants :)

I think there's a theme starting to develop here....more macro food photography, with the hand-made gnocchi created by Michael. The only real issue with this shot was that the steam from the pasta kept fogging up the glass. Fabulous gnocci though!

Here I played around with some wilting birthday roses. The G12 has in-camera post-processing options, like overlaying colour filters. Here, I photographed the roses in colour and converted them to sepia in camera. I also used the iContrast feature to bump up the contrast. There are other filters like B/W, vivid colour, selective colour. All the more reason to keep going with this camera...I haven't yet used them all!

And finally today's shot - having a bit of fun with some film I found in the back of two of my old film cameras my parents had retrieved from their garage and decided to finally lay rest at my place. More macro photography - the camera was just a couple of centimetres away from the film.

Feel free to follow the challenge each day on my Facebook page or my Flickr stream :)

A new decade, a new camera, a new 365 challenge!

Today is a bit of a milestone birthday for me...one of those birthdays with a whopping big 0 in it. One that throws you into another decade. One that makes you wonder where the last 40 years went...

But it's a good thing. A GREAT thing, especially when there's lots happening and lots to look forward to!

Photographically, I want to keep challenging myself, and have decided to start another 365 challenge - 365 of 40 it's going to be. A photo everyday of my big old 40th year. Or is it my 41st year?

Anyway,  I've got a new toy to do it with too....a sparkly new Canon PowerShot G12 (Thank you Michael xx). A Point & Shoot! Quelle horreur! As much as I love my 5D II and 7D cameras, I wanted a  compact camera that I could carry with me everywhere, but which still afforded full manual control. And after the fun of my first 365 Challenge I wanted to get back to taking a photo everyday.

So here is Day 1's photo (one of the first birthday cards I received this morning), and a shot of the latest Canon addition to the Surplice-Coppola household :)

  

365 Challenge #357 - Sunset at Port Macquarie

365 Challenge #357 - Sunset at Port Macquarie, originally uploaded by Melanie Surplice.

My extended family has an annual tradition of meeting up in the gorgeous seaside town of Port Macquarie each year.

Members of the family drive in from Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Newcastle and Sydney, and we hang out, catch up on goss, and invariably put away a few quiet drinkies on the scenic balcony of the Royal Hotel.

It's always a fun weekend, with the littlies and oldies - and this year's Corroborree 2011 was no exception.

Here's a shot I took of the sunset over the river, from the rooftop of our apartment. Looking forward to the legendary Port Mac weekend next year :)

365 Challenge #355 - Mothers Day 2011

365 Challenge #355 - Mothers Day 2011, originally uploaded by Melanie Surplice.

We had a lovely Mother's Day down at Sanctuary Cove on the Gold Coast, with Little B giving us all lots to smile about.

This photo of my sister-in-law and Little B was my favourite from the day.

Hope you had a wonderful Mother's Day, however you chose to spend it!

365 Challenge #349 - the parking lot's full at Lone Pine!

We had a great family day out at Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary!

Based out at Fig Tree Pocket, in Brisbane's western suburbs, the park claims to be the world's first and largest koala sanctuary, with over 130 koalas.

It was my second visit to Lone Pine, and what I love about this place, is that it's really laid back, and you can get up close and personal with the animals. There's koalas to the left and right, and a huge open area where kangaroos and wallabies roam around.

My two-year old nephew, Ben, was able to pat guinea pigs and chicks, sheep, goats and all manner of animals! The bird feeding session was a riot of lorikeets, rosellas and king parrots, and we saw working sheep dogs herd sheep, and then a veteran shearer relieve one of its fleece.

Lone Pine is a great day out for any Brisbanite or visitor to Brissie, and it's particularly great for photographers. Check it out when you can :)

365 Challenge #348 - The Anzac Spirit

Following the Dawn Service this morning, I headed back into the city to watch the Anzac Day march through Brisbane.

On my walk down to Ann Street, I overheard someone say that the Shrine of Memories was open. It's in the tunnel under Anzac Square and leads through to Central Station. I hadn't been in there - didn't even really know it existed, but I followed a bunch of Diggers in, and got way more than I bargained for.

It turned out the Diggers were part of one of the battalions due to walk in the march. They had their own private service in the Shrine of Memories, playing the Last Post and laying wreaths, before they were whisked off by bus up to the start of the march. I felt incredibly lucky to share that experience with the Diggers and their families - they didn't seem to mind (or notice) that I was there. The deep bonds and mateship that existed between these old guys was beautiful to watch. They spoke to each other so respectfully, while reflecting on their lost mates.

Following that little surprise, I was able to get a pretty good spot on the barricade. It was the perfect excuse to drag out the 70-200mm f/2.8 lens! A guy wandered over, put his backpack down and dragged out a Canon camera, with a 100-400mm lens - we chatted all things Canon until the march began.

It was a great procession of Diggers, bands, vehicles, flags and the odd horses, dogs and sheep. Yes, there was even an Armed Sheep!

The photo of these two gorgeous ladies was my favourite for the day. It's ANZAC mateship, sista style - this pair looked like they'd known each other forever, and as nurses - probably saw things that would horrify most of us.

I had an awesome day, chatting with some of the Diggers, and the people who stood behind the barricade with me. If the Dawn Service is the solemn part of Anzac Day, the march is almost like a celebration. It's so great to see people of all ages supporting the march, and those who fought - and continue to fight - for our country.

There's a whole album full of my photos from the 2011 Anzac Day march on my Flickr photostream :)

365 Challenge #347 - the big smoke

Oh, the joys of a 5-day long weekend! I've loved having the time to drag out the camera and flash gear and experiment with high speed macro photography, dusk and long exposure night shots, and today's abstract little project - smoke.

I was inspired by a couple of friends who recently posted pictures of smoke, and serendipitously came across a post on Strobox.com, which showed the set up for shooting smoke with one off camera flash. I love Strobox.com for the very reason that people post the set up for the shot, and the final result, so you can see how they did it. Nifty! You've gotta love the photography community for their willingess to share knowledge.

My trusty black pop up background came in handy (I still haven't been able to work out how to fold the %&*@(%& up! I propped it up against a booksheld in my rather dark hallway, and set up the camera (on a tripod with a cable release) square on, facing the background. The lightstand with a speedlight flash was about half a metre to the right of the camera, and the trusty Flashwave III fired the flash when I was ready.

As with most of these experiments, I took a lot of shots. Like about 100. Thank god for digital photography! It was hard to know where and how to focus - so I focused initially on the incense stick I was using as the smoke source, then flicked the camera to manual focus, and more or less hoped for the best.

It also took a while to get the hang of the patterns the smoke made - the airconditioning unit above the whole set up played a bit of havoc at first. So much easier with the aircon off!

I'm sure that had the aliens landed to see me flapping a smoking incense stick around in one hand, cable release in the other, and setting off the flash every five seconds, they'd have thought I was pretty good candidate for abduction.

Anyway, the final settings for these shots were ISO 100, 1/200, f/11, white balance set to Flash. Speedlight 580EX II flash dialled down to 1/4 power. When I processed the photos in Photoshop, I cranked up the saturation and contrast, as well as the blacks (via Levels), to get this abstract style of image.

365 Challenge #346 - Brisvegas at Dusk

It was another beautiful evening in Brisvegas, and I thought I'd head down to the Kangaroo Point Cliffs. I usually shoot from the top of the cliffs, but tonight I wanted a different angle, and headed down to river level.

I took a bunch of shots in color, but had to have the obligatory black and white photo. I like setting up the b/w settings in camera - I know I can shoot in colour and convert to b/w in Photoshop (in any case, I shoot in RAW and jpeg, so one file retains the settings and one does not). The movement in the clouds was cool.

I can't believe this 365 Challenge is up to #346! Less than 30 days of this particular challenge to go, and I'm thinking ahead to the next one...my blog also hit 6,000 page views this week, which was a nice little milestone. Round numbers are good :)

365 Challenge #345 - liquid pour and splash!

Further down this blog, I have a bunch of feeds from other photography blogs, and this morning I noticed an interesting post from the peeps at learnmyshot.com about liquid pour and splash photography using continuous lighting. I knew I had those blog feeds there for a reason!

I'm fascinated with high speed water shots, and while this post demonstrated via a video how you could do it with continuous lighting, I decided to use my wireless flash gear. My highly professional set up is shown below (taken on my iPhone) :). Clearly, I jest.

The 5D II + Tamron 90mm macro lens was set up on the tripod, with the FlashWave-III Wireless Radio Slave Receiver. My speedlight flash was tucked in behind the white background (which is a white light tent folded up). I put a white plastic sheet underneath the whole thing to catch any spills, and then placed my glass on an upturned colander to get it above all the plastic. As per the video, it was just a matter of pouring wine/water into the glass, and using a cable release to fire the shutter. Oh...one more thing, it helped immensely that the camera was set to continuous shooting mode.

Then I fiddled with the camera and flash settings until I got an effect I like. For the record, the shot above was taken at f/10, 1/200, ISO 400 set to WB=Flash. I dialled the speedlight down to 1/16 power.

I took a LOT of shots to get a few that I really liked. This was my pick of the bunch (no pun on the grape theme intended). It bugs me slightly in this shot that the white background has a pink tinge - but the red liquid was casting that reflection and there wasn't much I could do about it. Another tip from the guys in the video - if you're using red wine for a shot like this, dilute it with water 50/50 to let more light through.

Anyway, I'm really pleased that I stumbled across the learnmyshot.com post, and had some time to experiment. Gotta love a long weekend.

Now...please pass the wine!

The high tech set up!

365 Challenge #343 - dusk over Bulimba

365 Challenge #343 - dusk over Bulimba, originally uploaded by Melanie Surplice.

The last couple of nights in Brisbane have been awesome - it's nearly a full moon, and the light out on the river at dusk is beautiful.

Between full moons and capturing aircraft as they track across the river on their final approach into Brisbane airport, there's been heaps to photograph out there.

Have a great weekend wherever you are!

365 Challenge #340 - Cats Eyes!

Pixie!

Misty!

I was staying at my parent's place on the Gold Coast last night, and stalked the two fluffy princesses with the macro lens and flash. I was using on-camera flash, bounced off a white ceiling. I'm fascinated by the detail in the Pixie and Misty's eyes and whiskers.

"The Girls" got their revenge at 4.00am this morning, when they jumped on my head demanding to be fed...that's karma for you :)

365 Challenge #339 - Brisbane City Hall - looking a bit goth!

365 Challenge #339 - Brisbane City Hall - looking a bit goth!, originally uploaded by Melanie Surplice.

I went for a wander around the city last night, and as I was waiting for the bus home, I looked up the walls of City Hall.

I converted this pic to grayscale to give it a bit of a Goth look. All it needs is some bats :)

365 Challenge #334 - A storm brewing off Bondi!

Billy Joel's song "Storm Front" came to mind as Lizzie, Mike and I watched this whopper of a storm roll in over Bondi on Sunday afternoon. We'd have probably gone for a wander around the coast had the rain not started to dump down - but a few hours in the Bondi Icebergs, and another few hours in a yummy Italian trattoria made for a lurvely way to wile away the day.

365 Challenge #333 - Sails in Monochrome

Following on from my 80ish Cities post, I had a quick trip to my perennial favourite city, Sydney, over the weekend, and was treated to the most gorgeous day on Saturday. It was an awesome day to catch up with some of my Sydney buddies! It started with a photo walk around The Rocks - an area of my home town I truly adore. I love the historic buildings, the bustling markets, and all the fabulous iconic pubs.

I tried to look at the Opera House slightly differently in this shot, then snuck in a shot of Farrington Street en route to the Orient. Nothing like a quiet drink or two on a warm day! More drinks at the Oyster Bar ensued, followed by the most fabulous "keyseki" style Japanese meal. What a blissful day it was :)

365 Challenge #330 - The Cello

I don't have access to many musical instruments, so this morning when the chance came to photograph a friend's cello, I jumped at it.

It seemed that sepia tones would best suit this beautiful wooden instrument. I was particularly infatuated with the bridge. It reminds me a of a little man flexing his muscles :)

365 Challenge #329 - Shorncliffe Pier at night III

365 Challenge #329 - Shorncliffe Pier at night III, originally uploaded by Melanie Surplice.

It was a beautiful balmy evening in Brisbane last night, and Shorncliffe Pier provided the perfect backdrop to capture sunset.

These starbursts came for free!

365 Challenge #324 - an afternoon in the mansion

Wow! It was a fast and furious few hours at a 70's Italian-styled mansion at Carseldine this afternoon! Krank Photography Workshops set up no less than 10 "scenes" for us to shoot, inside and outside the ornately decorated house which is slated for demolition in a few months. Enter the developers...

Photographers Glen Krohn and Deborah Boots were on hand to show us how to get the best out of the models, poses and camera settings. The stylist (Elisha Casagrande), and hair and makeup team from Elite Freelancing, did an awesome job, as did the lovely models who remained incredibly patient with what must have felt like a paparazzi's-worth of photographers in their faces.

The workshop was fun, and definitely piqued my interested in fashion photography. Now...I want to go do it all again!

365 Challenge #321 - Super Moon meets River Cat on the Brisbane River

365 Challenge #321 - Super Moon meets River Cat on the Brisbane River, originally uploaded by Melanie Surplice.

I finally got a great view of the last of this week's "Super Moon". This shot is what happened when Super Moon met the River Cat :).

Gotta love a full moon over the Brisbane River on a balmy evening. Happy days!