Finding my 'style' what I don't want to do

I am still trying to find my 'Style' as a photographer, by trying a bit of everything I am sure I will get find it soon. I recently had the chance to do a maternity and  newborn baby shoot. What I learnt from this is I loved the maternity shoot - hated the newborn shoot. Perhaps hate is too strong, I did love having newborn baby cuddles and seeing how happy and proud Mum and Grandma were. 
Baby girl was wide awake and happy, this meant she was forever moving, I found it hard to get any of the stereotype poses that are popular for newborn photos. I also felt like I was intruding - which I didn't feel when doing the maternity shoot...I can now cross newborn photography of my list of 'styles'.

Now I will keep trying to find my 'style' ***I know what I want it to be...I have to prove I can do it before I advertise it*** in the meantime I will take my camera out as often as possible and search for the million dollar shot.

Last weekend I had a lucky find with a Jabiru (Black Headed Stork) in a pond beside the road near the local shopping centre,I tried to find a way to access the pond via a local park however the only way I could get close was to park on the side of the road...I was spotted 'stalking' the bird by one of my neighbors.   I thought the bird was one of the wetland birds from Australia Zoo on a bit of an adventure. This what they said to me G'day Roz, great shot! This is not one of ours. We have had reports over the last 12-18 months of wild Jabiru's in the area (mostly around Ewen Maddock Dam). It's very rare to see them this far south so you're very lucky. Sometimes they're seen as far south as Port Macquarie!I almost didn't read past great shot, LOL.

Until next time....see ya

Need to find a balance between work and play

This last few weeks have been incredibly busy at work, I have been starting work at 5am and often not finishing before 5pm. Not that I am complaining (well I did a little bit). I was starting to get withdrawal symptoms and missing my camera, I starting carry my camera with me in hope a photo opportunity would present. I don't really like taking photos at work - it is too much like 'work'. I miss a few weeks of the 52 week challenge on Flickr because I have been so busy and it has rained a lot on my days off. The conference that has kept me busy was an International Olympiad in Informatics (or my working title The Nerd Olympics) 300 students from 80 countries, competing for gold medals in mathematics.

http://www.ioi2013.org/

Every team of 4 had a leader from UQ who carried signs with the country names on them, the placement of them outside of the exam room appealed to me enough to take this photo.

On the last day of the Examination part of the Nerd Olympics, there was an hour delay due to technical issues, the students were getting a bit stressed and the tension in the room was high, 10 minutes before the start time there was a commotion at one end of the room. An announcement was made that this animal was harmless and to leave it be. A possum had run into the exam room, the international students were thrilled (and a little worried). With a lot of help I managed to get the possum to an area it would be safe and out of the way. The Dutch camera crew managed to get a good video of it, which I up loaded to You Tube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J5Gt0bUY2Oc

The possum came out of his hiding place at the end of the day and was escorted outside.   

One night when I got home right on dusk HWMBO was burning the hard wood he had been collecting for charcoal - he is collecting charcoal for his forge.

if made an awesome fire. I took some photos, thinking I would be able to use the flames as overlays for photoshop sometime in the future. I was so pleased with the look of this one it has become one of my favorite photos of the month.

By bringing my camera to work every day I managed to convince one of my boys to let me take his photo - he was a bit worried I was going to make him 'pose and smile for the camera'. I told him I was after a tired hard working look...No smiling. HE HE this is one sure way to get anyone to smile. His girlfriend was very pleased with the result, she says it is hard to get him to look natural.

I finally set aside some time for a sunset shoot, I went to one of my favorite spots on the Maroochy River and waited for the beautiful clouds to turn to gold. As I was taking this photo the rain snuck up on me from behind, it was a mad rush to get back to my car....luckily I got my camera on the seat before the skies opened and I got soaked. 

I was so happy to get out with my camera and get a few nice photos I didn't care.

I also found a nice patch of fungi always a treat