Form submitted successfully, thank you.

Error submitting form, please try again.

I love you (my new baby:)

So I passed my anatomy exam. Rushed it (as I do….you either know the answers or you don’t I figure), forgot to label the septum of the heart and messed up my inferior and superior vena cava. That’s ok. I’m happy with the 148 questions I answered right, not the 14 I guessed wrong…or just didn’t know:) Brad, my classmate and all round gee-nee-us almost scored 100%. Congratulations, well deserved:))

Alexandra Park today – Keke came 2nd, maybe 3rd in the Riverina shot put carnival! Schools from as far as 600 km away traveled to my town; I made friends with the other (nervous, anxious) Mums and cheered on their kids too.

Straight from Athletics to a funeral home for a school outing. Fascinating stuff and really nice, friendly people (though I’d be just as happy not to see them again:)

From the funeral home to my home where I found a package sticking out of my jammed-open-as-wide-as-it-could-go letterbox.

My camera!

Out the front….where anyone could have casually walked past and taken it…..yes, it was sent Registered Post which means I should have had to sign for it. I called my super-nice seller to say it had arrived semi-safely (I think he was as shocked as me….btw Tony, Thank You xx:))

Straight out the back to take a few shots.

Sorry my sizing is a bit crazy, I tried to make a bit of a collage then Photoshop decided to freeze and shut down so I abandoned it and they are what they are:)

Officially and hopelessly in love.

(OMG I own a 5D!!!)

Love and Peace,

Vxx

Magnuss

He watches me and waits.

Yesterday, I was washing dishes and looked out the kitchen window and he was 6 feet away, keeping an eye on me.

I hang out the washing, turn around and he’s sitting on the fence.

He loves me nearly as much as I love him.

My friendly magpie. I feed him each day (his favourite is spaghetti noodles).

He paces my verandah when I’m at school, anxious for my return (and waiting for food too I imagine).

My image does him no justice, it’s really cropped, my lens was way too short.

I’m justifying the purchase of a 70-200 so I can get nice photos of Magnuss, the beautiful bird who lights up my day:)

Tom II

Just a few more of the Deb Ball photos from yesterday.

Such a pleasure working with people this nice and this gorgeous:)

Next week..school (I love:), a pre-wedding meeting and coffee with an amazing photographer from Wodonga:)

Vx

Tom-cat

We dodged the rain.

We braved the cold.

We laughed.

(But then that’s what my mate Tom and I do anyway)

Laugh like crazy people. He’s in my Nursing class and is one of the funniest people I know (Raeleigh deserves mention too:)

These few shots were taken before tonight’s debutante ball. I hope they’re all having a great time!

Tomorrow, Cindy and her friend plan on staying in bed all day, watching DVDs, eating fancy food and pausing only long enough for me to take their photos. Fabulous:)

I have to go, Annika’s talking in my ear about a picture of Kevin Rudd in the paper and how he looked just like a monkey…

Vxx

(I’ll be back Sunday with more:))

For Ava

To live in hearts we leave behind
Is not to die.

~Thomas Campbell, Hallowed Ground

Early morning sun

6.20am

My lounge room started turning pink.

So we (Solomon and I) looked outside

To see the most beautiful of sunrises.

‘It’s like the sky’s been painted’ he said.

Vx

A flash of lightning

2 hours of yelling…of screaming, of uncontainable, unbridled rage.

I wore most of it.

I usually only post the happy here but this is my journal, a picture of my life on this day. Not always sunshine.

I thought making pancakes might make it better.

It didn’t.

She shouted out loud for all the neighbours to hear that I can’t cook anything, that nothing’s right or fair.

I put Nick junior on and she was incensed by how I thought it was age-appropriate for her.

I sent her to her room and she said she’d rather be there anyway, away from her awful family.

She knows how to break my heart a hundred different ways.

Like other gifted children I guess. To me though she’s a child first, gifted second.

Annika’s intellect is impossibly high and her emotions are felt with frightening intensity.

When she feels sad it is the lowest of lows, the end of all things good forevermore. She will cry for hours, days over an animal being hurt.

Her happiness is contagious and bright as sunshine, a rainbow circling the world. Her laughter is the sound of sweet music.

She adores her friends. Almost as much as cats and birds and all the creatures without a human voice.

Her anger is a bolt of lightning, a tornado tearing through the house.

She is acutely sensitive and perceptive; she sees society’s injustices even at this young age.

It’s an adventure that Tino has no clue how to deal with. He will never even begin to understand.

Me? It mirrors what’s inside my own head. I always thought something was wrong with me, that I was so different to my friends in how I thought.

In all my life I’ve never once known boredom. My head is so full, my mind always thinking. Stopping only for elusive sleep.

I see it now in my own daughter. Bound together by an inextricable bond.

(she knows what inextricable means:)

Vxx

Cloud Dreaming

Beautiful lady, devoted Mummy, amazing photographer and creator of one of the sweetest sites I’ve ever seen.

Her name is Fran, her photography is here, (be prepared to fall in love:)

Cloud-Dreaming is such a beautiful place, I’d encourage you to send in your cloud photos (they don’t have to be professional, even photos from your phone will be welcome)

Today, one of my images is on display!

See it here

Last weekend, during our photoshoot, we released 7 balloons for Princess Ava.

(I’ll blog those images on the darling girl’s birthday).

We watched as they floated towards the clouds and then silently snuck through a heart shaped opening (straight to heaven:)

It was amazing, even the kids were shocked and Annika said ‘She caught them Mum!! I saw her, she really, really did!!’

I know she did honey.

(Of that I’m sure).

Vx

Monochromatic

I love black and white almost as much as I love colour (stop reading it as COLOR my American mates, just for a minute:)

Some photographers know right away which images they’ll edit as a B&W – but I’m never 100% sure.

I play about in Lightroom skipping back and forth between the two…then end up saving as both a colour and a monochrome (I LOVE that word…I first heard it a thousand years ago when we bought our first colour TV (1976?) and my brother said, well, that’s the end of monochrome!).

So..you will get each and every image in colour as well as black and white.

You can decide for yourself which you like best. Or you can print both if you like.

Look forward to shooting you soon:)

Vx

Thank you my unpredictable blog.


I have no idea what’s been up with my blog….it hasn’t let me log in but tonight it relented. I feel privileged.

I have so many things to say and I’m sure I’ve forgotten half of them already.

Love school. Oh yes.

Love my new friends (I swore I would not even mention I’m a photographer – the first day I was introduced to the whole class as being one..)

I’m doing a wedding for one of them. Soon. Can not wait!

Love learning First Aid and feeling confident, really confident at being able to help and be useful if something were to happen.

Love driving to school playing the music I like and not what the kids like! More than a feeling, Take me back to you, Don’t go breakin’ my heart, Mean to me – all the cool stuff, see?

Love how Cindy offered to look after the kids so Tino and I could go to the movies (and how she sent a text asking us if we were behaving! Whaaaat!!)

Love the ice on the ground in the early morning – and the sun, it’s amazing this winter light!

Love how Annika’s Godmother, Melissa, takes her shopping and looking at makeup and for hot chocolate and spoils her and loves her. She is one in a million:)

Love how Tino gently held each of our cats while I attempted to give them worm tablets (and almost lost a finger!)

Love telling telemarketers ‘Sorry, this is a Government house’ and they apologise and hang up:)

Love how my sister-in-law and I are Cafe World queens!

Love how Tino said Jacob is hotter than Edward. He has no issues with his manliness.

(Edward’s hotter…just saying:)

Lunches to make, socks to find, a game or 10 of bubble blast to play while I fall asleep.

Goodnight my friends:)

Love,

vxx