It was Bella’s 11th Birthday a few weeks ago, and her mum had been promising photos for a long time… When asked what she wanted for her birthday, her original response was “money” she was really undecided as to what she really wanted… So Money was a safe bet… until 2 days before her birthday her mum wanted to check if thats all she wanted… her new response was “surprises”. So this was one of those last minute surprises, a 1 hr session in a location of her choice.

Bella chose the Himeji Japanese Gardens located in the city of Adelaide, It’s not a big area, but it sure was a beautiful day for taking pictures! I don’t recall ever going there before, but my dad insures me i’ve been…

Without further ado… Bella!

(here’s a few favourites)

**slideshow at the bottom of post**

Today I spent some time with Arabella, we hit up the Japanese Gardens here in Adelaide as it’s a place she’s spent a lot of time growing up. Arabella and her family are moving to Canberra in a few weeks so we decided this was the best location for her shoot. We had lots of fun! and of course, the rain held off for us!! Thanks Fiona for providing to towel!! :)
here is the teaser… more pics/slideshow coming soon!

I was browsing through some pictures on my hard drive from my trip to Turkey back in 2005 and thought i’d post a few that i took back then… enjoy my trip down memory lane! Most were taken with a P&S camera, though i did borrow a D70 from a teammate for a couple.

They were coming out of the winter when I was there… things were green! So pretty!

That River down there is the Euphrates River… (Genesis 2:14) named the 4th river.

These were rock formations part of the wall that divided the old and new city…

The banks of the Euphrates River where we awaited our Ferry.

I LOVED the lane ways in Turkey. So much character! very few doors were the same… if i was there again… i’d spend a week shooting doors alone!!

Minorettes were all over the place, so too were Satellite dishes!!!

Dunno if you’ll notice or not… but this image is actually 4 images i selected in LR and stitched together in PSCS4… PS did a great job i think… i can barely see lines aside from the sky and maybe lighting… but the rest of the pic to me looks great! I was standing on top of the big wall around the new/old cities… around 20m high… i can’t remember exactly…. but it was high! and it was a very steep step climb with NO HAND RAILS!!! and very expensive tripods and camera gear…

(can be viewed larger… just click it… )

Yes it is true… i LOVE clouds… actually i pretty much just love the sky and ESPECIALLY when the clouds are doing amazing things!!

This week we’ve had some CRAZY cloud action! I was driving home on my bus run the other night and saw some great formations and thought i’d get home, grab my gear and go to a high point a few mins away… I drive in the driveway and my dad calls my mobile… “have you seen clouds rolling over the hills?” i replied with…. “uhhh no” I drive toward to coast so hadn’t seen the clouds over the hills!  It was really sweet of him to call, so with that info i grabbed my gear and headed out the door again.

This is what I saw when I got to the highest point I could think of…

Then the following night, i was driving home again, saw the rays of light pouring through the clouds and quickly called mum who was at home… to ask if she could get my camera and tripod out… but due to some technical difficulties i got home before i spoke to her… But i still grabbed my gear and out i went… she came with me :)

We went to a similar location, this time a little further toward to coast. There was a huge black cloud coming, so I was a bit rushed to get a shot before I got dumped/rained on or before the black cloud covered my rays of sunshine…  here is the best shot I got…

it was actually taken while I hid in the car from the rain… I had the window down