This is just a quick post to say I’m home, had a great time and here is a photo. I have about 350 photos to go through from the 32 sets that I took photos at and things to say about the other sets I saw but didn’t take photos. I hope you like your music because for the next little while expect a lot of posts about the BluesFest.
This guy is amazing, this guy is the real deal. This is Ben Harper.
I have a new friend. Well I have a new friend by association of my camera. Last week I picked up a near new copy of a Sigma 30mm 1.4 off the camera board I frequent, from a guy who lives locally. I got it for a steal and a half. And by george it is a nice lens. Just about the same as the 50mm on a film camera as on my digital camera it comes to be about equivalent at 48mm.
I took it with me to The Farm on Sunday (well I took my whole camera bag because who wouldn’t?) when we went to have dinner with Grandad and Aunty Margaret who has been up looking after him after his most recent skin cancer removal and skin graft. I cooked tea for us all and Mum and Margaret provided desert (Chocolate self-saucing pudding, enough said). These are my two favourite photos from the little stroll I had.
I have always loved the Antigonon that covers the old tank stand, just such a pretty pink flower and it does so well in this climate (read it will climb anywhere it can) and well who can resist some tree fern goodness?
Today, it was my turn to cook dinner and earlier in the day I had spotted an ad in the paper that said Aldi was selling their salad leaves at half price for the moment. $1 for 120g is a very good buy. Since Aldi is just a stones throw from where we live, I picked up my camera and a $1 coin and went for a walk. This is what I saw.
The power lines overhead.
A rose peeking through the fence wire.
Weeds standing strong in the setting sun.
I must say I like this lens very much indeed.
Now for some music to share. Susan Enan. Sweet Music. I discovered her from watching Bones (see Clare MP, even though it might be far-fetched I found a cool artist. Bring on the Wonder was the song that was on Bones but I must say I like Monoplain thirty times more.
Well on Sunday I headed out with some friends to Natural Arch (Natural Bridge) to take some photos and take photos we did. I am not yet happy with my photos of the bridge or the creek in general. I was however happy with this photo of a Stinging Plant.
About 12ish we started to splinter off with people going home. I decided though that I had all day, some petrol and plenty of “film” left. I had thought of heading up to Binna Burra and taking a short walk but as I went past the Beechmont Launch on my way I stopped there instead and took some photos. Whilst the conditions for the hang and para gliders was not the best, there were still a handful up in the air.
Take off. This girl was lucky on her second time attempting to reach the clouds.
Safety Floats.
I don’t think getting caught in these powerlines would be a wise life choice. Hence the big red balls.
I even managed to pick up my first hitch-hiker on that trip as well. Mum was quite shocked when I walked into the house and told her that. Well, that is until I explained the hitch-hiker. I had thought of driving home via Canungra but a km or so down the road from Beechmont I decided against it and did a uie, on my way back up the road I saw a paraglider lugging his big pack with his thumb out. I thought well I have just been taking photos of you all, so I may as well repay the favour with a lift back. I picked him up and a had a nice chat on the way back to the launch site about para-gliding and photography.
I bought a flash for my camera the other week and it arrived on Thursday. I didn’t dare leave the house till the UPS man had came and finally at 12:06pm, he pulled up to our house with a parcel from BH Photo and there inside was a Canon 580ex Flash and an off-camera flash cord.
Since then, actually since the batteries were charged a couple of hours later, I have been having a ball playing and learning with my flash.
I don’t think I have any “real” photos to show for it other than a whole stack of my handbag sitting on my bed as I played with angles and strength.
My younger brother and my younger “brother” both see my camera as a tool of the devil so the arrival of a flash is just another excuse for my younger brother to yell and scream at me as he tries to defend himself from the devil. My younger “brother” of course follows the lead of his “brother” and after enduring the flash for 2 shots raises his arms to cover his face. Such is my life.
I just had a look through my photos again and I found this one of my duchess, when I was playing with my flash on the off camera cord with a bounce card. This photo shows two of the bangles that I picked up at Woodford. The top beaded one is a nice sparkley one that is nice for wearing out. The bottom one however is my very favourite. I think it is some sort of silver alloy but who knows for sure, just I don’t know where it was made, other than an educated guess of one of the many Muslim countries stretching from Morocco to the ‘stans in Central Asia. Isn’t it pretty though?
I am off to Natural Arch at Springbook in the morning with some local photographers for a fun filled day of camera fun.
My cousin Erica is up in Brisbane at the moment for a training course with her new job so on Sunday we picked her up from the airport and high-tailed it to The Farm for arvo tea with Julie, the boys and Grandad. Then we spent an hour or so trying to display the wedding photos from the other weekend on the TV so that everyone could see them but without the cables to do the job easily we didn’t get very far.
In planning dinner for Sunday night I had to take into plan the Pesco-vegetarian preference of Erica and the red meat carnivore that is my younger brother, who whilst he likes fish would rather eat his own leg before he had prawns or other shell fish. That threw my idea of actually cooking seafood paella in my paella pan which thus far has only been used to make curries out the window. As I was flicking through magazines I had out from the library I came across a recipe for Pasta e Fagioli in the May 2005 issue of Delicious. That looks good I thought and hopefully the men in my family won’t kick up too much of a fuss about the lack of meat in it.
I come from a culinary upbringing (doesn’t that sound swish) where the recipe mostly serves as a starting point and by the time you are eating the meal you are quite a few steps removed from the start. This is mainly due to the addition of extra vegetables in recipes. “What! The only vegetable called for is for a small onion and a stalk of celery? That is not much of a meal. Add some shallots as well and whatever else you can find is in the freezer/fridge/pantry.†Our freezer is a sight to see as it contains many Tupperware containers of chopped celery, shallots, capsicum, mushrooms etc that at a moments notice can be dumped into a saucepan to beef up the nutritional and taste content of a meal. Consequently, my ability to give you an accurate measure of what went into the soup is about as likely as seeing pigs fly. Unless you can follow the measure of half a tightly packed medium Tupperware container? No? I didn’t think so.
Garlic – a couple of cloves, minced. (I mince up garlic and freeze it in teaspoon sized foil packets)
Onion – diced
Carrot – diced
Celery – thinly sliced Shallots
Capsicum – diced
Pasta – soup pasta is good, or any small pasta – 150g or so
Beans – cannelloni and borlotti (3x400g tins or so serves 6 easily, drained)
Passata di Pomodoro – tablespoon or two
Tomatoes – 1x400g tin, whole and roughly chopped
Baby spinach – a handful or two
Vegetable stock – how much depends on how much soup you are making (9/10 times we used powder, it is easy)
Either on the stove top or microwave cook the pasta till it is about 7/8 cooked.
Meanwhile heat some olive oil in a large saucepan and soften the onion. Add the garlic and whatever other veggies you are using and cook for a couple of minutes till the veggies start to soften.
Roughly mash one of the tins of beans and add to the saucepan along with the other tins of beans,tomatoes and a little bit of Passata.
In the empty tins pour in some boiling water and a little bit of stock powder and pour into the soup (you get your money’s worth this way, you won’t be throwing out any little bit of flavour). How much stock you add really is up to you as it depends on a) how much liquid you want in the soup and b) what quantities of vegetables you have used initially.
Bring this to the boil and simmer for a couple of minutes and then add the cooked pasta, simmer for a couple more minutes and then stir through a couple of handfuls of baby spinach (basil could also work nicely here I think) allowing it to wilt a bit in the hot soup and serve with some crusty bread.
In the batch I made today I also added a couple of slices of roast capsicum that I had cut into thin strips to give add some more texture and flavour.
Grandad was wolfing it down and I can’t remember he if only had seconds or had thirds as well. The Palsson men didn’t complain too much about the lack of meat in it and the rest of it also quite enjoyed it. For dessert we had a chocolate self-saucing pudding but that will have wait till next time as I have no photo.
Do we want another wedding post? It was quite a nice w/e and I haven’t done that many exciting things since then or not that I have photos of and really it is all about the photos isn’t it?
How about details. There was so many pretty things at the reception that just made it that little bit more special.
Michelle’s Bouquet. Can you see the Paua (Abalone) shells? NZ is famous for Paua shells and they really are quite pretty shells, sort of like opals of the sea. Can you see the spiral shell? It actually has a finger sized hole at the bottom and that is what Shawn proposed with 🙂
Aunty Susan and Lisa went out to the reception site on the morning of the wedding and they created a masterpiece. The tables were decorated with “white” and black sand, tumble weed, Paua shell, seaweed, shells and candles. They truly outdid themselves, the tables were gorgeous.
Hiding beneath those layers of icing were a white chocolate and a chocolate mud cake from The Cheesecake Shop. Mmm Mmm.
This was a photo I grabbed as I walked past the wedding car. I only had my 50mm lens on and I couldn’t walk back any further or I would have crashed through the wall of the marquee.
We are about to go pick up Erica, another cousin who is up in Brisbane for a couple of days for job training. It will be nice to see her as we haven’t seen her since we were in Tasmania last year.
