Life is Funny...

A funny nice thing has happened to me in the last few weeks. You may remember that I put it out in the world that I was not going to try and make a business out of my photography....it is all about me blah blah blah. 

I have since been contacted to do family photos on the beach - a friend of a friend of a friend saw my photos of the dancers at the beach and wanted photos of her family at the same location. I had to quickly come up with a price for my services because she insisted on paying.

Then I got a random call from a lady asking if I can take photos of a painting she want to sell. I will doing this work this week. She also wants a printed copy of the photo.

Finally one of my boys (casual labor hire) has asked me to shoot his wedding in February. I said I would do it for petrol money....but no they want to pay me a fair price.....

I am saving all the money I get from my photography....it is going towards my UK trip (or another lens)

These images are a few from the family at the beach. 

I am meeting some wonderful people along the way. I love what I do

I love holidays

I am having the best time on my holidays, I have spent the last 2 weeks doing 'my' thing and going away by myself now the next two weeks will be about the girls (really it will be about me, I will just include them)

I have been away this weekend and have lots of photos to go through and edit before I post them, so this post will be about the night in Brisbane watching the laser lights...before I start I want to say HI to my first follower **** waves frantically**** I am excited to have a follower (and I am making the assumption that she will read this blog often. (She will also know that I read her blog after the whale watching weekend-  coz I 'borrowed' a photo from her - Thanks I have now subscribed to your blog as well)

Thursday night after a busy day in Brisbane, I went to the Brisbane festival to see the Santos laser light display. This outing was arranged by one of the lighting contractors from work, whie he is not doing so much of the work at UQ any more we are still good friends and have photography in common. 

I would never had made the effort to go to this show (even though it is twice a night for 2 weeks during Brisbane Festival every year) the grand finale is on Saturday night with River Fire a night of fireworks, laser shows and fly overs by the Air force. I am trying to talk HWMBO into going in with the girls...so far so good, Number # finishes work at 2pm allowing us plenty of time to get form home to town (hoping that Lighting Guy now going to be called LG saves us a spot).... now I am getting excited.

If the fire works are as good as the laser - there are incorporated, it will be a fantastic night. Fingers crossed it all works out. I really love night photo and slow shutter speeds so I hope he decides it is a good family outing.

I am going to edit my photos from the weekend in Toowoomba with Ra Ra, I leave you with my laser light photos

This was a bit of a cheat photo - I zoomed in and out while the shutter was open to create the laser lines - still looks pretty good though

Why do so many people like to dress up?

This weekend took me to the annual Abby Museum Medieval Festival, Caboolture. This festival is very popular, with people coming from all over Australia and if you believe the hype they come from all over the world....

Everything is supposed to represent how it was in Medieval times, the clothes the food, the tents, everything EXCEPT how they take your money....while they ask for gold coin as payment most of them are very happy to take YE OLDE CREDIT CARDS......

The food is amazing…yes I know that you can get the same food at most festivals…BUT I am sure it tastes so much better when the vans are covered in hessian and bunting. Diet be dammed I wanted to try everything, lucky I was there with #1, #3 and her +1 so between us we tried a lot the first day, day two HWMBO came with me so we tried the more. (I even bought cold venison pies to cook for dinner….yummy)

Dressing up….I get the re-enactment, this is an awesome part of the experience, I get that the stall holders and merchandise sellers need to follow the guide lines set out for the festival. I can even understand visitors dressing in medieval garb….but what I don’t understand - why people would come dressed as Captain America, teddy bears and characters from Assassin's Creed (I only know this coz +1 told me). Do people like to dress up so much that they use any excuse?

HWMBO likes me to dress up, but usually in private, so I was a bit surprised when he looked at prices and wanted to buy me a fur collared cloak.  Something like this will need to be worn in public..or to a Medieval Festival….(actually I think I would wear it when ever I could).

It was a fun weekend with sword fights, jousting, gypsies and birds of prey. We walked for hours and on both days when I finally had a chance to sit down and watch a show, the heavens opened and released freezing cold rain, as the crowd opened traditional medieval umbrellas, it was too much for me so home to my warm house with all the mod cons to heat up the venison pie and have a glass of wine.

I took a lot of photos and these are some of my favorites

This guy - I have named Fluffy... his name was Norm (doesn't that suit him?)
I stalked him for ages trying to get him to stand still - in the end I pushed in - the funnest thing happened after I took this shot...another lady wanted 'fluffy's' photo and asked him to stay put. HWMBO photo bombed her....he never does stuff like that and not to strangers!

The Turkish Second in Command - The Ottoman was giving a talk on weaponry... I didn't think it was right to interrupt when he had a sword in his hand... I love the peacock feather in this dudes hat

This little guy was watching the knight training school, it was like he was too young to play and had to watch from the sidelines

The Trebutchet...this is a 1/4 size of a medieval trevutchet used to win a war against so Barron...I listened to the story be only heard bits. I was more interested in watching it in action....much to my disapointment they were not allowed to shot the flaming balls (although he told me they had during the night) 

HWMBO was keen to see how the blacksmiths were set up, he has been slowly adding to his blacksmith supplies and collecting the charcol from the fire each night.

Beautiful Barn Owl, I got to hold and pat this beautiful girl, she was part of the bird of prey show.

Ladyhawke....Isabeau (HWMBO loves Michelle Pfiffer)

The Wedgetail eagle was very popular...such a beautiful bird, I felt sorry for him until I was told it was a rescued bird that will never fly. I could see the love the bird had for the 'Falconer' by the way he would bury his head in his shirt and wrap his wings around like a feathery hug.

This dude was a crack up...he was just a visitor the the festival and when I asked for his photo he said only  if he could take mine....sure but I am going first! I loved the blue eyes on the pelt.

Beautiful Gypsy Horse, the braiding in the mane was perfect. (This is a romany horse, first time at the festival)

Green lady in the crowd. She was watching the opening parade in the row in frount of me, she looked so beautiful I couldn't resist the opertunity