Just to let you all know… I’m going to be increasing my rates from the end of the month.  I’m already fully booked until the end of April, and I’ll honour the prices that I’ve already quoted a number of people for shoots after that.

It’s time though.  I know my rates are very low at the moment, and I’m not making any money out of this venture at all.  So, my new rates will be up on Thursday, and I’ll be reviewing the packages at the same time.

Oooh, and before I forget… I’ve finally ordered business cards.  I’m not doing the usual thing, I’ve ordered mini-Moo cards.  I cannot wait until they arrive!

I can’t post without a photo, so I leave you with an image of me! That’s right… that little cutout that Bradley is holding up is apparently me getting ready to plant seeds

He knows exactly what to say to make me feel guilty!! I’d got frustrated with him earlier in the day about him not helping me dig out the carrots that he planted, so I told him that I’m not going to buy more veggie seeds for him to plant if he’s not going to help get them out the ground when they’ve grown.

As for the lighting on the photos… I was fiddling around with the flash and trying to bounce the light off the walls after reading up about flashes last night.

If you’re here to find some of the photos from the wedding… I’ll post them tomorrow.

We went to Parys last Sunday to visit MIL, and I couldn’t resist asking Lance to stop on the side of the road for this shot.  It’s a pity I couldn’t get up the embankment to take the photo from a different angle though… it was actually raining and the ground was quite squidgy.

Haybales on a cloudy day

Before some of the Johannesburg readers wonder whether I’ve really lost the plot, the next photo was also taken in Parys.  LOL! My kids cannot do this at home.

Scootering down the road

One of the window displays in the camera shop (Kameraz).

This was one of my test shots with my “new” second-hand lens that I bought.

Just me – testing out my new lens at home.

Shouting

Set me free!!

Another photo from the party on Friday…

I’m not going to look up!

And lastly, I couldn’t resist adding another photo from Zoe’s newborn shoot last Sunday afternoon.

I had such drama with my camera over the weekend.  While I was in Hermanus in December, I did a very silly thing, and changed the lens on the beach on a very windy day.  As a result I got dust/sand in the camera body!  I thought I was very clever on Sunday, and tried to clean it myself with my lenspen.  I just made it a LOT worse.  In fact, it was so bad, that I had to borrow my dad’s camera body to do the newborn shoot on Sunday afternoon.

At lunchtime today, I took a colleague’s advice, and went to Kameraz, a little camera shop in Rosebank… it’s not the most bling shop you’ve ever been into… and in fact, if they weren’t referred by someone I probably would not have walked into it.  But OMW they saved my bacon!!

They cleaned it! Thankfully!! It’s still got a bit of dirt in the viewfinder, but at least the sensors are perfectly clean with no blemishes

And they stocked lens caps!! I lost my one lens cap ages ago, and haven’t managed to get that size anywhere! That shop is a gem I tell you!

Oh but then… I made the fatal mistake about asking them about second-hand lenses… and managed to walk out the shop with a new second-hand Sigma 24-70mm f2.8    So much for saving money this month!  Seriously though, the guys in the shop were extremely helpful and I learnt a lot.  The dude I spoke to painstakingly explained why the lenses are so different when you use them on an entry level DSLR like mine, vs the top of the range DSLR’s.   I didn’t realise what an impact the size of the sensor makes to the ability of the lens to give you true wide angles.  Very interesting.

What is also interesting, and I must remember, they do trade-ins on cameras, so if you want to upgrade they’ll buy your old kit off you.  Their second-hand selection of cameras and lenses was quite impressive!

So, anyhoo, my photo for the day… an abstract photo of myself with my new lens with some fancy PS added on top   Not my usual kind of photo, but I like it.

…especially photography related gadgets

I bought a Canon 430Ex MKII Speedlight flash for my camera just in case the light is bad on Saturday (it’s my first newborn shoot), because the weather has been so awful this week.

I was excitedly setting the whole thing on my camera this afternoon, when DRAMA!! I’d dropped my camera a few weeks ago, and didn’t think there was any damage to it; but now it looks like I’ve bent the metal on the flash thingy at the top of the camera; so the flash wouldn’t attach. But anyhoo, to cut a very long story short… Lance thankfully managed to bend the metal back into shape this evening and it worked

So… here’s a self portrait of me and my new toy

Check out Chookooloonks’ blog for more Love Thursday

I always admire the self portraits that Mishelle posts on her blog, and I thought I’d try my hand at it again today. And then because I wasn’t quite happy with the results (I looked old), I tried some of the actions that I got from the Pioneer Woman blog a few days ago. And check it out…

…cool hey?

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