30 Days of Photography - Day 23

The theme for Day 23 was sunflare. I had high hopes for taking some shots today, seeing as it was a gorgeous, sunny day in Melbourne. Buuuuuut we had a bunch of people over this afternoon, and I a) got distracted helping with the cooking, and b) flat out forgot. FAIL.

Thankfully, I remembered that I took a bunch of photos on a bushwalk we did way back at the start of September that I never showed you guys, so here:

I'm kind of obsessed with taking photos of dead trees. Dead trees are to me what abandoned houses are to Katie - kryptonite. I could quite happily fill entire memory cards with pictures of dead trees. I think I just like the textures of them!

K xx

Favourite photos of 2011: Volume 2

Yesterday, I forked out $125 for a single textbook. Thankfully, it's the ONLY textbook for my entire Masters degree, so I guess it could be worse? Anyway, having to put that sizeable a dent in my savings on something so unexciting made me want to look at pretty things that are free.

And so I give you my favourite photos from last year: Natural Environment Edition.

January - Cliffs at Cape Bridgewater, Victoria

July - Nice dead tree on Mount Lofty, near Melbourne

Sometimes, you just need to make things monochrome.

I'm pretty sure I could fill an entire art gallery with just the pictures of dead trees that I have on my hard drive. I'm kind of a little bit obsessed with them... (See also: metal statue of dead tree in Part 1 of this series!!)

August - Sunset from the John Hancock Observatory, Chicago

I elbowed a small child out of the way for this shot.

September - Garden of the Gods, Colorado Springs

Complete with insane rock climbers, if you look closely enough!

September - Part way up Pikes Peak, Colorado

It seems kind of Bronte-esque, to me

September - Seven Falls, Colorado

September - Central Park, New York

This is currently my desktop background

September - Guanella Pass, Colorado

September - Aspen trees on the Peak to Peak Highway, Colorado

This was the most amazing sea of trees I've ever seen

Which is your favourite? Does anyone else like dead trees as much as me? And do you know why textbooks are so sodding expensive??

K xx

Adventures and owies

That's right kids - contrary to what you may have been thinking, I'm not dead. I've just been crazy busy for the past week. I finished work on Tuesday, spent all day Wednesday cleaning (and nearly fell asleep at dinner with my parents), and packed the van and did more cleaning on Thursday. Which included giving myself a rather spectacular bruise on my left knee because I dropped my end of the (rather weighty CRT) TV, and used my knee to stop it smashing on the ground. We had the final inspection on Friday, followed by the 7.5 hour drive to Melbourne. Let me just say, the Hume Highway is REALLY. FREAKING. BORING... When the highlights of a drive that long are a town that's about 3 hours from the coast and which features a giant submarine, and a tree shaped like a chicken, you know it's dull.

After unloading the van and filling the garage up with all my junk really important stuff, I wound up going to stuff myself with pizza and watch the footy with my brother, C, and a bunch of his mates. Not actually AT the footy, you understand, because that was in Adelaide. But at one of C's mate's houses, which meant we could make really terrible jokes about the commentary and watch South Park during half time. SCORE!

(Oh, and speaking of really terrible jokes, there are two fish sitting in a tank. One turns to the other and says "So, how do you drive this thing?". C told that on Friday night, and as terrible as it is, I'm milking it for all it's worth!)

Over the weekend, I went crazy and wound up going bushwalking. Twice. Saturday was a trip out to Werribee Gorge with Ness and Jamie (Also? Chrome's spellcheck is telling me that Werribee should be spelled 'Werewolf'. AWESOME). Seeing as how I had NO idea where any of my clothes were (other than "somewhere in a box in the garage"), I wore my most appropriate outfit - jeans and a t-shirt that has puffy sleeves and little hearts all over it. And yes, it's TOTALLY necessary to have puffy sleeves on your shirt while bushwalking. Didn't you know? ;) I did manage to locate my hiking boots though, so at least my footwear was appropriate!

Werribee Gorge

Werribee River

Taken by Jamie, who's not too lazy to stand up during lunchtime like I am a much better photographer than me

Oh, and if you DO go to Werribee Gorge? The park map that's available online shows the unsealed roads in the same colour as the contour lines... #whosegeniusideawasthat

Then on Sunday, I went out to the Christmas Hills with my parents and one of their friends for a jaunt up Mt Lofty. There were nice views:

And dead trees which led me to play with monochrome mode:

And weird fungus:

And then I fell on my arse. To be fair, it was going down a hill that was covered in slick mud and a whole lot of moss. But I still went out walking with a group containing two people with Seniors cards and *I* was the one who fell down. Nice work, Kirsti...

But it was all okay, because we went out for lunch in Yarra Glen afterwards. Pear cider and a steak sandwich makes any Sunday afternoon better!

How've you guys been while I've been off gallivanting about the countryside?!

K xx