Clare's Spot

Lake Macquarie

My family just got back from a camp at Lake Macquarie. I took a lot of photos, It took an hour to load them on to the computer.... But because nearly all of them were of people (and I may need permission to post so many) this is a sunset post! With words as well as photos. We had a lot of fun at the camp, tubing (or taking photos of it), eating, talking and playing card games... like Scum and Mafia and a lot more talking, sitting or standing around, playing with babies, riding on boats and having fun, with not much sleeping involved..... especially with daylight saving happening that weekend!

On the second evening I looked down the slope toward the lake and saw golden light falling between the trees. I could also see the water and a trail of gold leading across the water to the sun, but a fence surrounded the campsite.

It also happened that barbed wire encircled the top of the fence so climbing over would be doable but potentially hazardous, and climbing in looked even harder than out. Then I noticed the gap between the locked gate and the ground.... I managed to squeeze under, just. I also got rather dirty in the process. Not something I like doing but for photo opportunities....

I had though about the difficulty of getting back in if I climbed over but not getting under again. I also realized that the tea time siren would probably not be loud enough for me to hear from all the way down at the lake and no one actually knew where I was....

Getting back through up hill proved awkward and I had trouble getting me and my camera through but I did..... and then I ran up the hill and found the siren had gone ages ago and people had already started eating.... So the next night I got a key for the gate first... and because of daylight saving we went straight after tea and I also acquired a few more people with cameras, who had seen my photos from the evening before. And I had my lovely sister a a model too.

There were also some random people fishing from the jetty too, which added a nice human element to the photos.

Isn't our Gods creation so wonderful! And here is the link to the [sermon] Pastor Dave preached on Sunday at the camp. God is Good! His word is Good!

Psalm 19:7-11

7 The law of the Lord is perfect,

reviving the soul;

the testimony of the Lord is sure,

making wise the simple;

8 the precepts of the Lord are right,

rejoicing the heart;

the commandment of the Lord is pure,

enlightening the eyes;

9 the fear of the Lord is clean,

enduring forever;

the rules of the Lord are true,

and righteous altogether.

10 More to be desired are they than gold,

even much fine gold;

sweeter also than honey

and drippings of the honeycomb.

11 Moreover, by them is your servant warned;

in keeping them there is great reward.

(ESV)

Walking into the shop at a winery to look around.. “Would you like to try anything”…. Meaning the wine… “ah no thanks”…. How old do we look?... “Are you sure?”…. “yes we are fine… quite fine, I’m doing a photo shoot here later…”

Getting an email from Open2Study asking if they can interview me about my experience in the course I did through them and about awards that I won with photos I took during the course….. other than the fact that it inspired me to take cool photos, I really already knew too much for it, though if you were new to photography it would be great….

Well it was great/amazing to get junior champion photographic exhibit at the show… but to have people walking round writing my name on sheets of paper for a competition thing was to much…. (my name was the answer to one of the question on it…. the first question…. Because I got the junior champion photographic exhibit)

Someone sees photos of Ann and asks if she is my niece…. No she is my little sister… yes I said this in the last awkward post, but it happened again with the same photos… which just makes it even funnier!

Digging up ‘games’ that I made ages ago…. Oh the were so terrible.. and then Jane says she wants to play one of them again….

Nearly everyone I know coming up to me and congratulating me on how well I did at the show…… and what do I say back to them…. Oh I like the congratulations and am so happy with how well I did but… awkward..

Me trying to squeeze under a locked gate…. And succeeding…. Then when I want to get back in realizing that at least last time I was going downhill while squeezing through….. and now I have to get back in … and I’m probably too far away to hear the tea time siren…. Which could have gone a while ago….. (Which in fact it had)

But the photos I got were worth it!

Some random person coming up to me and says “You are Sally’s daughter!” Um yes…. “You look so much like her”… well I must, for someone, who I can’t place, to know without I doubt that I am…

When Alice comes up and says “we need to print that out for your twenty first”…

After vigorously rubbing, attempting to de-lint a blanket (and failing) I fold it up, as I do that I hold the blanket above my head and get a really weird sensation. I finally realize it is my eyebrows and shirt and some of my hair sticking straight out towards the blanket… Static Electricity!

Calling another kid my brother’s name because I though he was…

When someone asks to hug me… "ok"… they hug me and then they finally tell me why the random hug.

Me being silly enough to get myself dehydrated and then have ahead ache for the rest of the day…. which is really not funny at all.... for me.

Standing on a jetty randomly spinning around while Alice took photos of me…. Well I had just got Alice to do that too.

This is a photo I took of Alice... not one of the ones she took of me... for more reasons than one.

Randomly attempting to jump in the air, on a jetty, at the same time as two other people, while a fourth tries to take photos of us.

Watching people fall off and not fall off while tubing... or should I say while they were tubing and I sat in the boat taking photos.

You may be surprised to know that all of the photos of tubing on this post ended up with the person riding the tube managing to get it up again! I do have photos of what happened next to prove it... otherwise I might not have believed it myself!.. but I haven't put them on here.

Trying to take photos while sliding from side to side along the seat in the back of the boat and having to twist around to do it..... and ending up with sore legs, ankles, knees and muscles from trying to brace myself.... so I didn't slide..

Warning, you are about to be flooded, covered, inundated, piled, pelted with photos of mostly horses and a few other things I saw at the show. I shall start the bombardment with a photo of photos... well mostly my photo. I got the CHAMPION JUNIOR PHOTOGRAPHIC EXHIBIT!..... again.....!!!! FYI I also got it last year.

This year I entered in both the junior and the open section and won quite a lot in both. I won firsts in all but two of the junior categories and I won three of the open ones, getting a total of seven firsts! I also got three seconds, two thirds and six highly commendeds! I have never done so well before, and, as you can probably tell, I am pretty pleased about it.

I read all the judge's comments and found something rather amusing and inconsistent about them. On three of my placed photos (which are the ones with comments) and on other peoples' photos, they said we needed to crop the photo so the subject was more centered... I totally disagreed. Later I read the comment on a different photo of mine. This is their exact words; "Good composition-off center always works well"

If carts had legs.... well it would look strange

I watched the heavy horse cart thingy being judged.... after Arabians, some sort of heavy horse would be my favourite horse.

Some of our flowers won things, our cabbage got second and our oranges got first.

As I said before the heavy horses are so beautiful! Especially when all groomed and fitted out for the show!

I tried a few panning shots. The idea is to have the background as blurred as possible but most of the subject as clear as possible. I move the camera while having the shutter open... but to actually move it and keep the subject in the same place in the frame is not at all easy.... I took so many photos to get these.