Photo 27 - Relationships

Parent & child.... so very cute!

Photo 26 - Freeze Frame

This photo was taken at the cricket game I went to today.  It was the first live cricket game I've ever been to, and our team lost by only 6 runs, it was a real cliffhanger.

Photo 25 - Faces

This has to be my favourite photo of my blog so far.  I love that they were both looking at me.

Photo 24 - Cleanliness

Photo 23 - Zoo

The cage epitomises why so many people dislike zoos.  Also this guy looks kind of sad at being stuck behind bars.

Photo 22 - Leisure

Many people in NZ choose tramping, hiking or bush-walking as a weekend leisure activity.  This is one of the thousands of tracks available.  This is a particularly well maintained track.

Photo 21 - Sky high

I can't believe I am at Photo 21 already.  There has been a bit of a break the last couple of days as I have had a cold. :-(
Anyway this photo is another taken at the Pureora Forest Park.  It was quite an isolated spot and this tree trunk stood proud at the side of the road.

Photo 20 - Shade

I just loved this photo, it captured the trees and bush beautifully.  It was so cool in the bush, the minute you step into the shade you felt the fresh coolness of these lovely trees.

Photo 19 - Trees

This might look like just another photo of fallen trees...  These trees fell almost 2000 years ago (AD 186) when a massive volcanic eruption that created Lake Taupo blasted them flat and covered them in pumice and ash.  The red sunsets caused by the ash from this eruption were seen from China and are also recorded in Roman records.  The trees remained about 1 metre below the surface until a contractor uncovered them in 1983.  It is not that spectacular to look at but it is amazing to think how old they are and how well preserved they are.

Photo 18 - Status

This is our rescue helicopter at the Waikato Hospital.  It arrived about an hour before I took this photo so I hope that the patient is doing better.  The rescue choppers are always very busy over summer with lots of people heading to beaches and isolated spots for their holidays.  They truly are 'rescue' choppers and the paramedics on board are responsible for saving many lives.  It fits this theme as the patient's status is dependent  totally on these men and woman and their helicopters!

Photo 17 - Imperfection

This was taken by my husband.  It is such a great shot and the brown spot shows up very clearly.  It is a leaf off our grapevine at our house.

Photo 16 - Strange

This is the view from Level 9 of the Waikato Hospital car park as seen through the metal grill railing.  I was not sure that it was how I thought it would turn out, but certainly fits the strange theme.

Post 15 - Lines

See if you can guess what this is a photo of!

Photo 14 - Fluffy!

I was short a photo tonight, I forgot to take a summer bbq photo and there was no sunset.   So instead we have a photo in black and white of my fluffy blanket.  Certainly not the most exciting or impressive photo of the year! :-)

Photo 13 - Fast

 We had a lovely day out visiting friends and I took this photo on the drive home at sunset.

Photo 12 - Glow

This is our cat Phantom.  He was my husband's pet when we started dating.  The first few times I stayed over I got a fright too see these glowing green eyes in the middle of the dark kitchen on a trip for a glass of water.  I never expected to catch them on camera.  There is no editing in this photo except to crop it.

Photo 11 - Analog

It got to late last night and I realised that although my husband had taken some photos on my camera I had not.  Therefore I went through the list so that I could find a theme that would make for an easy photo.  I decided I would take a photo of the watch face on my Ipod Nano.  My sister had a Mickey Mouse watch when she was young, but I like this Minnie Mouse one too. I just couldn't quite get the cropping to work perfectly.

Photo 10 - Flowers

These are one of my favourite flowers, and my Dad's too, so he always has some growing in his garden.  I am getting the hang of the macro and supermacro settings on my camera I think.

Photo 9 - Fragile

This is another photo with which I am ecstatic with the result.  When I was taking it I couldn't really see the web completely on the screen due to the light, so was really happy to see the result.

Photo 8 - Gloomy

I loved this photo.  The view is from my parent's deck in Tairua (the house is for sale too).  There are some hills in the distance which in this weather you can only just make out the faint outline.  The low-lying misty rain cloud it makes the view quite ethereal.  Unfortunately the weather was like this for a lot of the time that I was staying there.  Not really summer weather here yet, just the odd glimpse. 

Photo 7 - Power

I took a couple of photos on the 7th but I didn't like the result and had some better shots from other days that I was away.  In the end I settled for this one.  The power of the surf and the approaching rain is quite impressive.  It isn't as wild as I have seen it but certainly not swimming or surfing weather.

Photo 6 - Beginnings

On January 6th the Junior Surf Carnival was held a Pauanui Beach.  Several Surf Lifesaving clubs were represented by their junior squads aged from 7 years old and up.  The youngest group are the 'Little Nippers' and they teach them water confidence.  My nephew has been attending so the whole family went along to support him.  This photo is the beginning of the Beach Flag event for the young girls.  They start from this lying down position and on 'Go' they get up and turn around and run for the end (about 20 metres) to get a 'flag' at the end.  Those who get a flag go on to race again, and so on until there is just one winner.

It is 'Beginnings' because these girls are our future lifeguards starting out on their training, and also as it is the 'beginning' of the race.  I loved the colours in their caps and uniforms.

Photo 5 - Children's Toys

My nephew had been playing with his cars but was transfixed by what was on the television at the time (probably Sesame Street).  The book and dolls blanket also lack the same appeal as Elmo and Oscar the Grouch.

Photo 4 - Shadows

I was taking photos at the local University this afternoon and was taking some shots of the new sculpture that was erected in October last year.  Just as I was walking away I noticed the shadows and decided to take some shots. 

I also had a bit of a play with adding a green filter and cropping in the editing software that came with my camera.  I quite like the end result.  Thank you all for your great feedback and comments, I'm sure it will help me improve throughout the year.

 

Photo 3 - Cars

Well the weather has packed in again (so much for laundry day). Not really nice summer weather like we should have.  I took this sitting in my car while my husband was in the local supermarket.

Photo 2 - Sentimental

This is Lake Rotoroa or Hamilton Lake here in Hamilton.  A little over 5 years ago I spent several hours here with my (now) husband on our first date.  The weather was just as stunning then too.

Photo 1 - Playground

This photo was taken of my nephew playing in the playground at Tairua Beach in the Coromandel. The weather was very overcast and drizzly but it was nice to be able to get the kids out of the house for a run around.

I have trouble taking photos of people doing things, and even though he is not looking at the camera I still think it came out ok.

What am I doing?

I was trying to find a challenge for the year that I could do and follow and stumbled across a Photo Challenge for 2012 on forum at Elements Village. It sounded like fun so I have signed up. I just purchased a new camera. I have been using an Olympus camera since 1990 so it made sense for me to get another Olympus this time too. My old camera I love still but unfortunately after 7 years the battery life is no longer suffcient for me to use it frequently.

My new camera:
I saved about $80 buying it during the Boxing Day sales. I really wanted a purple one, but all the shops were sold out of the purple one, so I settled on a black one. It takes 14mp photos and has a 10x optical zoom. I wanted the zoom as that is the same as my old camera, although the old camera, C-770 UltraZoom, only takes 4mp photos. My new one is an Olympus VR-310. So far it seems ok, but I really haven't had a chance to test it out yet. One big advantage is the smaller size. It fits in my handbag so I should have it with me more often than I used to.

The challenge:
To take 366 photos over the year that match the list of themes given to us. There is also a list of 52 themes if 366 is too much. I finally decided to do 366 as I like the idea of a photo for each day.

The theme lists:
I have created a Google Docs spreadsheet with the themes that I can fill in with the date a photo was taken and the filename so I can find it later.
Here is the list of 52 themes for anyone who is interested.

Keeping up to date with everyone elses posts and photos will be the biggest part of the challenge I think, but I will endeavour to do my best. Bring it on!