Maju:

Photo Quest #78 Diagonal Lines

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:16:12 +0800

The first photo was taken when I was in London in August. It's of Regent's Canal and was taken with my daughter's point and shoot Sony DSC-W150.

Regent's Canal 02

The next photo was taken last year in Victoria, Australia, with my own Pentax K100D Super, f 5.6 at 1/750th sec. Both photos are unedited apart from some cropping.

Spring blossom 2

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QotD: Oldest Thing in My Closet

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 14:01:12 +0800

What's the oldest article of clothing you own? Bonus points if you show us a photo!

I've got several items of clothing dating from the very early 1990s and many from nearly as long ago. I tend to keep my clothes until they fall to pieces.

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QotD: Snail Mail

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 17:06:34 +0800

When was the last time you received a hand-written letter in the mail? Who sent it?

I think the only time I receive hand-written letters is when people enclose a note in a Christmas card to me. I've got a few friends with whom I don't want to completely lose touch, but the only contact we have is Christmas cards, so we usually write a note in the cards, but one or two people actually write on separate paper.

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QotD: My Favorite Room in the House

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 15:31:42 +0800

What's your favorite room in the house? Bonus points if you show us a photo!

One of favourite rooms in my new house is the lounge room which is really just the other end of the dining/computer area. (It's a very small house.) I like the whole place because it's so light and bright, but I'm not prepared to show a photo of my bedroom on here. This photo was taken before I had completely finished unpacking so the room is a bit messier than I normally keep it.

Lounge room

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QotD: Famous Encounter

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 12:21:33 +0800

Who is the most famous person you've ever met?

I once met Cliff Richard (now Sir Cliff Richard) when I was volunteering as an usher at a concert he was giving in Perth and I also once got Rolf Harris's autograph. I'm not sure if either of those examples qualify as actually meeting the person, though. Also, I'm pretty sure that neither of them was known in the US.

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Photo Quest #70 - Compositional Contrast

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 09:10:54 +0800

When I read about this week's photo quest I remembered that I'd taken a series of afternoon photos of some dead trees in a lake near where I live. I was only going to post that series, but then I decided to go out early(ish) in the morning and take some photos of the same trees with the light coming from the other direction. So here are my efforts. (Pentax K100D) I did not crop or edit these in any way.

Afternoon:
36mm, f11@ 1/190 sec:

Yangebup Lake 14

45mm, f11@ 1/190 (this is my favourite):

Yangebup Lake 15

45mm, f11@ 1/190:

Yangebup Lake 16

34mm, f9.5@ 1/190:

Yangebup Lake 17

Morning:

34mm, f11 @ 1/190:

Yangebup Lake 18

50mm, f11 @ 1/190:

Yangebup Lake 19

43mm, f11 @ 1/190 (same scene as above just after a duck swam past:

Yangebup Lake 20

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I'm back!

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 13:57:14 +0800

On Saturday I arrived back from ten fantastic days in London with my daughter. I was really sad to leave and it wasn't easy to come back to my normal humdrum life here. I saw lots of interesting and beautiful places and things in London and also out of London, but I thought I'd share with you some of the quirkier things I saw.

Many of the shops in the Camden Market area display samples of their wares on the fronts of their buildings:

Shoe display in Camden Market

In the Southbank area on the Thames, near the London Eye (a giant ferris wheel), there are many funny performance artists:
1. Michael Jackson

Michael Jackson near London Eye

2. a couple of cyclists

Lycra lizards

3. a headless person

Headless statue

These decorated trees were just a bit further along the Thames:

Polka dot trees

A bit further again along the bank of the Thames was this warning sign:

Wet floor on the Thames

Across the river in Trafalgar Square, this man was tossing food to the people below, as it is now forbidden to feed the pigeons:

Feed the people

One day we went by train to Brighton Beach, where I was amazed at the number of pebbles and by the people who didn't seem to notice that they were sunbathing on stones:

Sunbathing at Brighton beach

These two musicians were also in Brighton:

1. Stilt man:

DSC00936

2. Tightrope man:

Tghtrope musician

Another day we went to the Cotswolds, north west of London, where we saw "dog parking" at an organic farm shop:

Dog parking

On my last day we were in the famous department store Selfridges in Oxford St, which was celebrating its 100th anniversary with a display of photos and artefacts, including a statue of the founder made entirely of jellybeans:

Jellybean man

On another wall were some funny photos:

Selfridges wedding

We visited Greenwich in order to see the zero Meridian line, and while there we also saw a wedding party:

Wedding party at Greenwich

And finally, one day we were walking towards Earl's Court train station when this group of guys came out of a doorway and walked along in front of us. We were very curious about why they were dressed as they were, so when they went into a bottle shop we hung around outside, and when they came out they were very happy to pose for a photo op (naturally they turned out to be Australians, on their way to a rugby match):

Aussie rugby fans in London

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Moving

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Sat, 01 Aug 2009 14:37:36 +0800

I've been very quiet here lately; first, I had a houseguest, then I had to move - moving day is Monday 3rd August - and then on 10th August I'm going to London to spend ten days with my daughter. Whew! Things should be a bit quieter for the rest of the year, though.

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Photo Quest #64 - Show me your weather - July (Winter) in Western Australia

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 13:26:14 +0800

I took these photos while I was away on a mini-break in the far south-west of Western Australia, at the southern-most tip of the state, Cape Leeuwin. It was an extremely windy day with showers alternating with sun and blue sky. It was quite hard getting the exposure right as the light kept changing, but it was interesting catching the sun shining on some parts of the scene while there were big dark clouds above or to one side. I learnt that I don't have enough patience to wait for exactly the right moment to press the shutter to capture the ocean spray flying up into the air.

All taken with Pentax K100D Super.

18 mm, f11 @ 1/250.

34 mm, f11 @ 1/250

50 mm, f11 @ 1/250

30 mm, f11 @ 1/180

30 mm, f11 @ 1/180

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QotD: Everywhere Has Its Problems

nobody@vox.com(Maju) — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:11:06 +0800

What prevents your city/town from being the best place in the country to live?
Submitted by Cherney.

The summers are too hot and dry. The rest of the year is great, though.

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