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Tag Archives: photography

52 Portrait Project – 1/52

Hello 2014.

Greetings for everyone who are still with me and my photoblog. Fellow bloggers and friends/family in Facebook have been really great these past years. Your support all these years have been a huge boost to my growth in photography, and I am forever grateful. I wish you a joyful and prosperous New Year of 2014, which filled with lots of belly laughs that bring tears down your cheeks.

I’d like to extend my congratulations to those who have bravely started their 2014 project on the 1st of January (mere three days ago), be it project 365 (yes, looking at you, and you), or a photo a week project,  or any other creative and stimulating projects.

Some of you might still remember my project 365 in 2012, which I missed doing terribly in 2013. I missed how intense the experience could be, I mean, yeah, the pressure of producing a photo a day came only from myself, but still, I missed the fun! Call me crazy but I loved the discipline, organisation, and creativity demanded from that project. I felt my skills improved tremendously. It is true what they say, you can only get better at something by doing it more, and more practice.

This year I decided to start the 52 Portrait Project. I know that my true passion is in photographing people. Be it a classic portrait style, a profile silhouette against the light, a reflection or just some silly faces looking at you, I love doing them all. I just love capturing everything about people. In this 52 Portrait Project, I will share one or more photo(s) of people a week, for 52 weeks. The style and ways of editing will (hopefully) vary each week; but you will see a person or two or more in my photographs.

I am away from home as I was writing this post to start the project. You see, I am ‘officially’ still on my holiday with my family until the end of (Australia’s) summer holiday, but that’s okay. There’s an easiness in starting the project at the beginning of the year, despite the challenge of getting organised on the holiday, because the start and end dates are just right there! 1st January and 31st of December. Bang!

Anyway, let’s get this party started, shall we…

This week’s portraits were of my daughter. Our family was lucky enough to travel to Jordan   and stayed in the Dead Sea area at the end of December 2013. It was winter in Jordan, but the weather in the Dead Sea never goes below 25C, so we could go down to the beach in the middle winter and experienced floating on the water comfortably-ish. These photos were taken one afternoon at the Dead Sea after my daughter had enough of floating around.

So, in the Dead Sea, what you have to do after you have a ‘dip’ in the sea is to rinse yourself with fresh water right after you leave the overly salted water to get rid of the salt off your skin. The location of the nearest fresh water shower was two minutes and a steep staircase away from the beach. So, while Ms. 5 were waiting for the rest of the family to go up with her, she was playing with some mud or pebbles on the beach, and got totally air-dried right there. The white stuff you see on her was salt. All salt. Thick and crusty sea salt. It was like nothing I’ve ever seen before…

 

Salty K

 

You have to try to keep the sea water off your face, as it can sting you so. Especially the sensitive areas like eyes and lips.

It was an indescribable experience to be able to do this in the Dead Sea. I felt really blessed. It certainly became one of the highlights of 2013, if not my life (!).

So there you go. Week 1 of the new project is DONE. I hope I will see you back next week, if not sooner, as I have been travelling to many interesting places this holiday and have tons of photos to share.

PS: Feel free to leave the link to your photography projects in the comment area, I’d love to make new connections and be inspired by all of you crazy kids.

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  • yasmine ft dörr05/01/2014 - 1:09 pm

    Yayyy!!! Another project from the talented you. Very looking forward to seeing more portraits to come. Enjoy the journey :-)…ReplyCancel

  • fiebs06/01/2014 - 8:50 pm

    Very cool trip! Like how this portrait series captures the details of that unique experience. Best of luck with the new project! Look forward to seeing more. Like you, I did a 365 in 2012 and then last year opted for a monthly challenge, so this year it’s a 52 for me as well as I’d like to get back to more frequent shooting and posting.ReplyCancel

    • [ayu]08/01/2014 - 7:47 pm

      Thank you! Looking forward to your 52 this year too. Let’s get this year crackin’…xReplyCancel

  • ohdearria07/01/2014 - 12:14 pm

    Looking forward to seeing pics from you. I had followed your 365 pics in 2012 and loved them all. xxReplyCancel

    • [ayu]08/01/2014 - 7:50 pm

      First of all, Happy New Year to you Ria. Thanks for your support, it meant a lot. Hope you enjoy this year’s project too. Have an awesome 2014 yah… xReplyCancel

  • Ika Giles10/01/2014 - 1:06 pm

    Well done beybbb…beautiful photos! Enjoy the rest of your holiday xxReplyCancel

  • happycampersblog10/02/2014 - 1:20 am

    Beautiful portraits of your daughterReplyCancel

  • marcus dilano06/05/2014 - 12:38 am

    Beautiful images of a lovely little girl 🙂ReplyCancel

the party gig

Two weeks ago I had the opportunity to do another gig, which was to document a special birthday party. I was excited for this gig, because this type of photography, lifestyle photography, is exactly what I aim to specialise in my photography services.

I love this type of people photography because I love taking portraits of people. Period. And this type of people photography, it’s all about documenting real-life events, which tend to have more emotional value to those involved. It’s about documenting personhood and family life. It celebrates connections, life milestones, personality, sentiments, and natural pieces of life. Birthday party is one of the best life events in a person’s life for me to capture. Especially for milestone years, usually family members are putting more effort in making them extra special, and it would be even better if the whole thing is properly documented so that you can look back and re-live the celebration, remembering the fun memories and treasure other things that happen in the party that you don’t get to see at the party.

This party was taken place in The Scented Rose Garden and Teahouse in Bungendore, NSW. It’s a beautiful outdoor place surrounded by flower garden. The weather was perfect, everybody was well dressed and happy to be there. Everything was, dare I say it, picture perfect. Indeed.

Here are a couple of photos of the joint. It’s a beautiful place with many interesting details to capture.

Here is the birthday man! Did I mention that it was a surprise party? Well, in the end he kinda suspect something was up (it’s hard to hide all the cars parking outside the teahouse), but he was surprised to see how many people actually showed up. Including relatives from other city.

Everybody had a great time, eating and drinking …

..and game playing..and other merry-making.

It was a long day. But it was a great day. The party had ended, but the memory should stay with us as long as we want it, (hopefully) thanks to the pictures I took that day!

Again, Happy 50th, H!

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  • yasmine ft dörr02/11/2013 - 8:09 pm

    love love it! you have successfully transported me to that event itself, it’s as if i was personally there! bagus!!!…ReplyCancel

    • [ayu]02/11/2013 - 9:28 pm

      Waaaaks!!! What a nice thing to say … Thanks for this, maaaak! Meant a lot…xReplyCancel

  • Cindy12/11/2013 - 2:37 pm

    This blog is too pretty, I like looking at all those faces! You’ve found yourself another follower <3ReplyCancel

night vision – Canberra

These photos were taken about a month ago. It was a cold autumn night in Canberra, the temperature dropped to 5 degrees. Add a little of wind it actually felt even colder. I was ready in my layers of clothing (and gloves, and a beanie) I didn’t feel that uncomfortable.

Taking night photography is always interesting. Most of the time is all about keeping still, that’s why we use the help of tripod. Then it’s a matter of waiting. How long you open the shutter, how many shots you make in different type of setting etc.

Unfortunately that night, even though I brought my tripod along, I did not have that little base plate (that you screw on your camera and sits on the tripod) that usually attach to the tripod. For some strange reason, that little plate was sitting by its lonesome self at home. Go figure. If my head was not properly attach to my neck I’m sure I left it next to that plate as well. So anyway, I kicked my self for this amateur mistake, but hey, I just had to make do, didn’t I. I found a plastic crate in my car that I ended up using by placing my camera on top of it to make sure the camera didn’t move. All my shots that night were taken from a really low angle.

We did not go to many places that night. We covered areas around the lake Burley-Griffin. We stood under the two bridges looking at the direction of the new Parliament House (parked at Regatta point), Carillon, and lastly to the new Parliament House. I did not take many photos at the parliament house, I didn’t have the right lens for it. We were so close, and the building was so wide, and it just didn’t work.

These two photos were the most decent ones I took from that night.

dingdong towerunder the bridge

 

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Bonus Day #Project365

last sunset of 2012

Last sunset. 31 Dec 2012, Bradleys Point, NSW

new year's eve 2012

 

Happy New Year 2013! Wishing you a happy and prosperous new year filled with fun, love and laughter.

I’ll take a month off blogging and will be back on your computer screen in February, (hopefully) with a new photography project.  Live long and prosper…

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Day 333 #Project365

It’s a take-photos-from-archive kinda post today, I’m afraid. One child of mine was not feeling too well, it’s very challenging to get more than 3 metres radius away from her, let alone be inspired to take one awesome shot.

These pictures were taken a month ago in Melbourne while I was enjoying my Me time there. Now summer is only days away in this part of the world, and I’m looking forward to see more beach scenery like these!

333-365, brighton melbourne 1
Nikon D90 | AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED | ISO400 | f/7.1 | 1/1250 |

333-365, brighton melbourne 2
Nikon D90 | AF-S Zoom-Nikkor 24-70mm f/2.8G ED | ISO400 | f/11 | 1/800 |

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