London Calling

London Calling

14 Aug 2008

Don't give me this rubbish that jetlag doesn't exist. I've been up since 2.00 a.m. Luckily the Olympic swimming starts at 3.00 in the morning in London so I've ben watching all the swim finals. The English tv commentary is hysterical. This was their response to the Australian womens 4 x 200 metre freestyle relay swim.



"Fantastic time, professional race as we've come to expect from the Australians. Now if our girls had swum a better tactical race in the semis and made it into the final they probably would have been in the medal hunt for a bronze or silver." But they didn't, did they???




Here are a few photos from London. I've been in London for 2 days and despite the jetlag I've been taking photos and lots of them. I can say the new camera does very well in low light conditions. The 2 black and white photos were shot at 1600, no flash and came out well. 



I normally shoot in RAW but I shot all jpegs yesterday as I'm trying to conserve my memory cards. I've been looking in the shops but have bought nothing so far.




I always leave my shopping until the end of the trip or post things home so I don't have to lug them around. My brain is still a bit too fuzzy to make any decisions anyway. 

Time for me to get up and start the day. 

Jillian

Read more

White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies

White Chocolate and Macadamia Nut Cookies

4 Aug 2008

As Friday will be my last day at work for a while, I baked some cookies to take to work. I picked up some Callebaut white chocolate and macadamia nuts at my local fruit market a few weeks ago. I was first introduced to Callebaut chocolate when I worked in Canada. Most of the patients would bring in Laura Secord chocolates as a thank-you gift, a bit like Cadbury Roses, but every now and again a patient would arrive bearing the tell tale gold box from Callebaut. I would carefully select 1 or 2 chocolates for my daily ration to make the box last as long as possible.



I decided to combine both ingredients and tracked down a recipe for white chocolate and macadamia nut cookies. I baked them on Sunday morning whilst simultaneously taking a phone call; finishing off my tax and designing a wedding album. It's all been a little bit hectic around here. The cookie mix made way more cookies than I expected, so the batch should last the Department for at least 2 days. I haven't tasted one yet but they look okay.



Hopefully the next photos I'll be posting will be from my trip. 

Until then,

Jillian

Read more

Double Bay

Double Bay

26 Jul 2008

Only 2 weeks to go before I fly to London, the first destination on my 5 week vacation. I decided long ago that I'd buy myself a new camera and was trying to decide between the Nikon d3 and the d300. I collected my new camera on Monday and today I took it for a test drive. The d300 has lots of new settings and buttons which will take me quite some time to get my head around. Today I did some basic settings, charged up the battery and took it out to Double Bay.



The camera has a good weight to it and a satisfying shutter click. Some of the buttons have been shifted from the usual Nikon locations so I kept switching the camera off instead of changing the aperture. I guess I'll eventually learn.




I came home to download the files and discovered all the software that came with the camera was in Japanese! A bit of searching on the internet later I was able to convert the files to have a look at them. The files are huge compared to my old camera and the greens are a bit wonky at the moment so I need to check out those other presets I didn't get round to setting. Now I have to check the camera out in low light conditions and with flash so I'll be ready for next round of weddings.



Here are some of the photos I took down at Double Bay wharf, the Woollahra Council Chambers and the neighbouring Blackburn gardens.



Jillian

Read more

Balmain

Balmain

20 Jul 2008

Saturday morning dawned bright and sunny. After a quick shopping trip, a load of washing, my 8.00 a.m. body combat class at the gym and a petrol refill ($60!!!) I was on my way to Balmain. Sydney has been hosting World Youth Day this past week and major road closures are in force all around the Eastern suburbs and Central railway station. It made getting to Balmain an interesting exercise. I allowed plenty of extra time as I'd have to drive through the city, something to be avoided on a Saturday morning. The roads were a dream with hardly any traffic so I was there in no time.




I arrived early for my lunch so camera in hand, I roamed around Balmain. Balmain is a dog lovers paradise. There were pooches everywhere of all shapes and sizes and the bank seemed to be the local gathering place.



Balmain was an old working class area characterised by it's sandstone cottages. It's a longtime since it's been working class and most of those cottages have been renovated and sell for exorbitant prices. As it was lunch time and market day, Balmain was busy. After lunch I strolled down to the markets, held in the grounds of St. Andrews church to have a quick look and walked back to my car through Gladstone Park.















I drove down to East Balmain and found rows of lovely old sandstone cottages and an historic cottage - Clontarf cottage. I went a bit crazy taking photos and took almost 100 in 11/2 hours. I'm a bit worried with my holiday coming up. If I can take 100 photos in 90 minutes, how many photos will I be taking when I'm in France, Portugal and Spain??

Jillian

Read more

Queen Street, Woollahra

Queen Street, Woollahra

13 Jul 2008

I used to live in Woollahra and I've always loved it's villagey feel. When I was studying photography, I would straight head to Queen Street for some inspiration. It has changed though. When I lived there, Queens Street consisted of local food shops, dress shops, a few cafes and antique and furniture shops. I haven't been to Queen Street for a few months now and in that time, the antique and furniture shops have almost disappeared and have been replaced by unique design and giftware shops and high end fashion boutiques.



I made a little pilgrimage to Queen Street on Saturday morning after the gym. I found a miraculous park, then walked past Jones the Grocer, where you can always find impossible to locate goodies. I was on my way to Amanda Garrett to say hello and to check out her always elegant bridal wear.



Amanda gave me my first wedding photography referral, for which I'll always be grateful. I sauntered back along Queen Street checking out the beautiful shops for the beautiful people.



I wandered past bill's which was packed to the rafters. bill's is known for it's breakfasts but I prefer to go their for afternoon tea or dinner as bill's does great scones with jam.




Last stop was summers floral on the corner of Queen and Moncur Streets. summers floral is one of my favourite flower shops though I do tend to take more photos of flowers than purchases.






Jillian

2016 edit - Only Summers Florals is still open for business. Bills has relocated to Bondi and Amanda Garrett has relocated to Rome!

Read more

A Comparison - film vs digital

A Comparison - film vs digital

5 Jul 2008

I've been wanting to do this for ages - compare film images with digital images. Call me a luddite, but I still prefer film as it's a more complete product. There's way too much fiddling around with digital images for my like.

I've chosen 3 images and I've posted the digital version and the film version of the same image. I've done no adjustments to the files - these are straight from the camera or the scanner. The film images always come back a bit red so I usually adjust a little for that, whilst with the digital images I normally change the levels, the exposure, the saturation then sharpen to taste.

Jillian

Read more