My sister Alice has just started hew own business, Alice May Web Design. So we drove to a falling apart farm just down our road that some friends of ours used to own. I have all these memories of that place back when it was a bit more stable.... Alice of course needed some lovely photos that she can use on her website, conveniently she has me as her sister. 

We had beautiful golden light for the photos and a few cows had been kind enough to eat the grass short in some places. My sister Jane was our replacement reflector holder, Alice is usually my assistant when I am doing photo shoots, but obviously it is hard to assist at your own shoot. Jane made a rather noisy reflector holder, but at least she did not drop my reflector in any of the cow pats which the afore mentioned beasts had left rather inconveniently in a lot of places we almost stepped. 

I must say my photography is still improving, as are my editing skills. And when I started doing photos professional I had almost no idea about how to pose people.....

In one of the places I took some shots, I had Alice sitting on some stairs.... although what is the definition of stairs. A set of steps leading from one floor of a building to another, typically inside the building. Okay these were outside and the led to a hole in the stairs and the leading part felt like they were going to lead straight to the ground before they even got to the hole.  Amazingly they decided that they would leave that for another day. 

The old sheds were perfect backdrops, the red cow shed one being my favorite. We got a huge variety of shots in the glorious afternoon light.

And Jane was there so we had some laughs... Especially over me, who while taking some photos around these ones, I was kinda lying on the grass groaning because of the uncomfortable position and because of the itchy grass. Alice and Jane found that amusing!

I don't often take photos with so much glare, but I really liked how these few turned out. I simply took them into the sun, so the glare is the sunlight actually on the lens. Oh and one of the lens flairs is added in the portrait photo.

I also have a bit of an obsession with vignetting photos and these two last shots looked so good with that bit of vignette added.

Which is your favourite shot?

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A few days after taking all those photos of books, glasses and keys, (can be found in previous post) I was able to borrow an old pocket watch from a friend. Naturally that entitled another photo shoot of my books and the watch and pieces of the insides, pieces of time....

I drove past a house the other day and it inspired me to write, this;

Once this was not a sad little house, I am sure. Once a man, or maybe more, laboured on its foundations. Each wooden slat, cut and placed by loving hands. With joy and laughter, looking forward to a brighter future, this house rose up from the steep hill. Finally the wife arrived, the furniture, and the corrugated iron for the roof. It rumbled up on a slow moving wagon, drawn by a team of oxen, maybe. Maybe they had trudged the tree boarded track up the mountains for days, weeks.

Once, maybe once, the young wife ran up and into her husbands arms,  so glad that they were together again. So glad of the beautiful house, a house of her own, with wooden boards to sweep the dust from. Together they would make this their home, possibly.

As the rain fell, it drummed down on the roof, horrendously noisy, but they sat together, knowing that the house was solid built. It would not blow away, or collapse like a tent of canvas. Maybe soon after that children could have come.

Once they could have leaped off the bottom step and run down the slope, crossing over the fallen tree that bridged the creek, and jumped into their fathers arms as he arrived home. Did he come from taking their cattle to market? Or selling the furs of the animals he trapped? Or from the homestead where The Boss lived? 

Other times the children could have run with buckets down to the bubbling mountain stream and tried to catch the little mosquito fish, that darted through the clear water. Little trousers, or skirts, hoisted high. Maybe muddy little feet ran back up the hill to show Mother their prizes. Or maybe they fished out the fat black tadpoles, and kept them in a jar, watching as they grew legs, squiggly tails shrank and then disappeared. 

Once upon a time, long ago, many things could have happened in and around that happy little house. House of promises, hopes and dreams, once. Now though, it sits a weathered grey. On a hillside, far from anywhere, a dull house rots, silent except for the clatter, bang, and scratch of the rusted iron roofing, that has now come loose. Each gust of wind, pulls at the house, and it succumbs, sinking away, slowly returning to dust, and memories.

What memories it must hold though, if only I could hear it speak. If only the creaks, could, be interpreted, or the language of old things found out. But the people who lived there once, have gone, grown old and died. Maybe the children still live on somewhere, I wonder have they forgotten, the once happy little house on a hill. Or are they no longer, here to be able to remember, have they too passed away. I do not know, but I wonder, what does that sad little house remember?

The juices in my mouth stopped squishing in sweet flavoursome bursts at every chew and no longer slipped smoothly down my throat to fill my stomach in a satisfactory way. The soft pulpy fruit turned hard after a few mouthfuls and the liquid that ran from it, down my arm, began to feel sticky and dirty. 
I chewed harder; my teeth grating together, with a gulp, another mouthful of the fruit scratched its way to fill the pit of my stomach, sharp edges catching at my throat. Yet I cannot stop. My jaws keep working and again I swallow... I swallow what feels like rocks picked up from beside a path, gravel. 

11th October 1943 A British spy plane crashes in Nazi-occupied France. Its pilot and passenger are best friends. One of the girls has a shot at survival. The other has lost the game before it's barely begun.

That just says it all

Yes I did used to be that cute! Since I turn ... ah lets say old today I thought I should post photos of me, as time passes. I don't know who all these photos were taken by, probably my parents, though with the really old ones I took photos of the photos since we didn't have any copies of them on the computer. 

I am not exactly sure if they are in the right order (the old ones) but they are close. There is also proof here that my hair was not always long and it has been cut short once.......

So in celebration on eighteen years, from the beginning, me. 

Yes this it taken at our place..... it was so different back then..... I remember this moment, watching the storm come in.

And I'm rather confused of the order of the photos around here....

I was once taller than my sisters too..... and Jane had longer hair than me.

I know this was taken at school some time.....

And now the lovely digital age! these photos are in the correct order. The photo below was taken in 2006. With the digital age also comes me not being able to chose which photos to put here so there are a few more for each year..... oh well... Look how many freckles I had! Well I still do, but not so obvious.

The massive flood of 2007

I have never had a horse but if there is one nearby I will probably go and pat it..... even climbing onto private property.... though this is in a paddock next door, and any one can walk there.

This chook is still alive even though she has tried to die numerous times.

Do you like to look back over old photos?

Have you ever counted back the years to see if you are really as old as you are meant to be?