I have had another busy few weeks, hence the lack of a one week update.
The garden is now getting pretty grassy, but it’s still quite patchy. I have no idea what we’ve done to make it patchy; we used WAY more seed than was recommended, so who knows 🙂
Things I am loving this fortnight:
- Portrait photography.
- Renting lenses to play with.
- Making an advent calendar for James.
- Receiving goodies via post.
- Virgin River, Season 2, on Netflix.
- My new ShotBox.
- Vegan KitKats.
Portrait photography has taken over my life a little. James, my adorably encouraging husband put a post up on the local community post explaining that I’m studying and that I need experience and did anyone want free portrait photography sessions. Well, it escalated quite quickly and I am now pretty much booked out every weekend until Christmas.
I did my first Portrait session on Saturday with a young mum and her baby girl. It was so much fun. When I was getting ready to go, I felt quite stressed. I’ve not really done much photography other than with my friends and family, so this was quite different.
Overall though, the session went well; the baby was superb and smiling the entire time. The mum was very good with poses and had a few ideas of photos that she wanted to compliment the photos that I suggested.
This weekend I rented a lens to play with. It’s a 135mm prime lens (which means that it doesn’t zoom at all, it’s just a static length). I was under the impression that it would be about the size of the 50mm, but a little bit bigger. Wider maybe. However, it was HUGE. Like four times the length of the 50mm and about twice as wide at the actual lens area. And heavy.
I rented it as I had a few sessions booked with friends, as well as one of the random community sessions. I figured that I’d get a lot of practice with familiar people then I’m more likely to get a feel for it.
As it stands, I didn’t get very much practice as my friends both cancelled their sessions. Anyway, I picked up the lens and then sat in the car playing with it for a few minutes. I was initially a bit shocked, at it was very zoomed in! I guess I hadn’t really done enough research – or my understanding of the lenses isn’t that good!
Having played with it a little in the car, I went down to the waterfront and took photos all along, driving a bit and then taking more photos, then driving along a bit more and then taking more photos. I got a few quite good beach scenes.
I promptly went home and did a bit of research about what the 135mm lens is good for!
As its nearly Christmas (hahaha) I have decided to make James an advent calendar. He’s not super into the chocolate calendars, so this year I will make him a beer advent calendar!
So far I’ve constructed the little shelving unit and most of the little cardboard drawers. Next I need to cover or colour the shell and the drawers, and then decided what is going on each one. I think I’m going to use my Cricut machine to cut out little numbers for the front of each drawer and then make little tags to go into each one. The tags will match the beer that I buy…as there is no way the beer will fit into the drawers on the advent calendar.
Last week I received a parcel from ‘British Corner Shop’, however, no-one will own up to having sent it. It was lovely. It contained the following:
- A bottle of Fentimans Rose Lemonade.
- A bag of mini party rings.
- Two packs of Chewits.
- Two Dolmio stir in sauces.
- A box of bedtime tea.
The tea is amazing. It tastes like liquid gingerbread!
Whoever sent it to me must know me fairly well as the Dolmio stir in sauces are my absolute favourite! Only someone who knows me would put that into a gift box. So thankyou whoever sent it!
I started watching Virgin River, season 2. I had to go back and read the recap for season 1, as I’d completely forgotten what happened!
Virgin River follows Mel, a nurse who moves to a little town called Virgin River, from LA, after a traumatic event. You don’t find out what sent her there straight away, but it’s very gripping! I’m not sure I’m selling it well though. HA.
Season 2 is so good so far. Lots of tension and miscommunication, just what I like 😉
I bought a shotbox to help take photos of things with.
I’d seen it in Spotlight ages ago, but wasn’t in a position to buy one at the time, but recently I saw it again and thought, ‘Why not?!’
It’s so much fun, and comes with a load of backgrounds to use, my favourite being a sort of white tile, and also a wooden effect. I find that it looks quite nice with the wooden sheet as a floor and the tiles as the background.
Hopefully this will help me to up my small item photography game.
James managed to find Vegan KitKat!!!
There have been quite a few announcements on the Facebook Vegan groups and so I’ve known that these MIGHT be coming to New Zealand, but this week it was confirmed when people in the group started putting messages up saying that they had found them, and where. Lucky for us (or me), one of the places was a local pac’n’save. Yay!
I can tell you that they aren’t 100% exactly the same, like the chocolate is way more dark than a normal KitKat, and so they taste a little different, but actually I don’t mind. It’s a KitKat and the wafer is actually the bit that I like the most. What I would do with a normal KitKat Chunky is bite all the chocolate off around the sides and then just each the wafer middle bit last. Save the best until last!
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