Such a show off!!

One of the things I'm truly blessed with is the townhouse complex we stay in. My kids have tons of friends and can safely play whenever and wherever they wish. All the neighbours get along well and the complex is well maintained and always looks good. They've recently installed night lighting in our gardens and I think the results are spectactular.

SPS (Someone’s Portrait Saturday)

One of my family’s favourite holiday destinations is a guest farm in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands area. It’s an actual working farm where the kids get to ride horses, milk cows, etc, and at the moment we try to get away to the farm at least once a year. This is a portrait I took of my son while we were there and is a firm favourite of mine. One thing I NEVER do is pass up an opportunity to show off when it comes to my kids. So here is today’s SPS.

What a 'knot' I got!

Today's HS:MS word is 'knot' and what a lot of fun this one's been. I've been paging through books looking for just the right phrase to shoot, one that has a word ending in K before the word NOT. I think the result was well worth the effort. (I'm really enjoying this HS:MS daily challenge)

Hayfever season

Sorry it's late but I only managed to get aroung to shooting late last night. It's hayfever season here in South Africa. It's our winter at the moment (not that we actually have winters) and everything is dry and brittle. The air gets full off dry African dust which can lead to terrible hayfever and runny noses. Today's pic is of my son's nasal spray, which at the moment is always close at hand.

It's pouring!!

This is my nephew's Christening a few weeks ago, and I've been dieing for a chance to use this shot. So when HS:MS used the word 'Pour' for today's prompt I jumped at the chance of uploading it. What a pleasant surprise. Thanks Anita and Kirsty. (PS: No children were harmed in the taking of this photograph, in fact he had a blast)

Please forgive me

Okay so today's post is a bit of a cheat! I've posted this image before but I really like it and because today's HS:MS prompt is 'wave' it's really appropriate. My problem is that by the time I get home from work in the evening, it's dark so I don't have any natural light to shoot in. Hope you'll all forgive me for using this!!

Weathered

Yesterday I joined an amazing blog called 'Her Space: My Space'. Basically they give you a daily prompt, you could call it the word of the day, and the trick is to shoot the word, whichever way you want. You could take it literally or you could view the word in a real abstract way. Either way, it looks like lots of fun, and it's great to see all the different members' interpretations of the daily word. That being said, today's word is 'weathered' and here's my attempt.

Quite by fluke

Shooting a photo at lunchtime (the only chance I get these days) is proving to be terrible. The light is too harsh and the shadows are a real problem. So when I popped out the other day to see what I could get, I didn't get my hopes up. But just when I think I know what I'm doing, I get a great pic when I think I won't. Make sense? No. Me neither. Actually I think it's all the shadows that make this shot. If I hadn't taken it, I would swear this was shot early morning or late afternoon, not harsh midday sun.

This was such a hoot!

This is the other stadium pic I mentioned a couple of days ago. It’s one I’m submitting to the Institute of Civil Engineering’s annual photo competition. I just hope it’s in time because the competition closes on Friday and today’s Tuesday! That only gives me a couple of days to get the photos to Johannesburg, and with South Africa’s notoriously slow postal service, I’ll be thrilled if they even get there, late or otherwise. This pic was tons of fun to shoot, standing on the side of the road at night with a tripod. I swear every single car that passed me hooted and waved!!

The beauty all around us

As I said the other day, I'm always looking for interesting and unusual things to shoot, in the hope that I'll create a really unique photo. And I usually have to look hard. But perhaps now that I'm seriously getting into photography I'm learning to see beauty in my immediate surroundings instead of being blasé about it, or taking these beautiful things for granted. Yesterday while washing the car I couldn't help notice how stunning this pot plant looks, a pot plant that's been standing there for years now. I hope you find it stunning too.