Tanyas Photos

My camera just loves my daughter!

2011-01-20T11:28:00.000-08:00

I adore taking pics of Lemmie..absolutely adore it! She gets totally into the whole posing thing and (albeit biased) I think she is absolutely gorgeous!!!

These are some pics I took of her on the beach - and there is something very "swimsuit illustrated" about them :) Not sure if thats the right thing to say though lol.

Traditional Sunrise Pic

2011-01-18T12:11:00.000-08:00

Every time I go down to the coast I wake up really early the first morning and get a sunrise pic. There is just something about watching the sun rise over an ocean that fills me with such peace and joy.

Reviving this blog :)

2011-01-15T04:07:00.000-08:00

Can't believe its been two years since I last posted here! I had such an amazing time with taking pics of my girls on holiday that I really decided to get more into learning my camera and not using the Auto mode as much.

I took the girls to the Rose Gardens at the local botannical gardens today, and I am quite pleased with these shots!

I love summer!!

2008-12-21T11:45:00.001-08:00

We were up at the pool today and this tree had the most gorgeous flowers!!I had to go fetch my camera and get a few snaps!! I just love this colour! I hope I managed to capture how truly vibrant they are!

Wordless Wednesday - when having the wrong settings can be interesting!

2008-11-26T12:16:00.001-08:00

See more Wordless Wednesday here

Raindrops...

2008-11-23T05:15:00.000-08:00

We had a hectic thunderstorm the other day and I was sitting on my lounge enjoying the smells of rain, lol.
I noticed the droplets on the Agapanthus and grabbed my camera.
I'm a great fan of close up shots and I think I need to invest in a better macro lense!

I think my favourite is the first one :)

TFL :)

A house guest...

2008-11-15T12:14:00.000-08:00

I went to one of my best friends bridal shower today - What a fab day!! I was the only one with a camera so I was doing my bit while holding a niggly baby to capture the day! lol

By now you know my love for flowers - so I couldnt resist their marigold patch. I didn't notice at the time of taking the pic..but can you spot the houseguest???? :)

Wordless Wednesday - how I feel today

2008-11-12T11:10:00.001-08:00

If I could choose one pic to depict how I feel today..this would be it!!

see more Wordless Wednesday here

More baby pics...

2008-11-08T05:27:00.000-08:00

These were taken last weekend - I just havent had a chance yet to download them.

I can see here my exposure was slightly off, on the close up you can see there is too much light coming from the top right? It caused a noticable glare on Saige's headband.

I so enjoy taking pics of Saige, she is always a willing subject! lol

Closer...

2008-11-03T11:47:00.000-08:00

I often chat to my friend Jeanette about how my "people photos suck" lol!! She gave me some advice that I have been using and I really think it has made a huge difference!! I mentioned I was battling getting my aperture settings right....she told me she always uses 5.6 when shooting people..I have been trying it..starting on 5.6 and adjusting from there...Jen you were right!! I seldom need to change it!

I used to struggle with my DOF too...but nailed it here :)

Another tip I got from Jeanette was to GET CLOSER! I always used to shoot the whole top half or the whole body...now I have learned that zooming in can yield just as great shots!!

I feel great about these shots!!! The are by no means perfect - but I feel a great improvement from when I started this blog!!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-10-29T12:08:00.001-07:00

Lol he wouldnt stand still so did my best here!!

See more Wordless Wednesday here

I love spring!!

2008-10-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

Yup - more flowers!! lol I just love photographing flowers/tree's etc. I find them to be quite forgiving and its great to play with different angles and lighting and not having to worry about the subject moving :)

Flowers, flowers, flowers!

2008-10-26T08:26:00.000-07:00

Now that Spring has Sprung and we have had our first rains the blossoms are coming up everywhere! I took a walk round our complex and it has come alive the last two weeks!

I've had great fun with my camera - these are the first of my favourites!

Wordless Wednesday

2008-09-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

See more Wordless Wednesday here

It's been a while...

2008-08-16T13:51:00.000-07:00

I can't believe so much time has gone by since my last post! Its been so hectic now that I am back at work I haven't downloaded pics in ages! I really admire Jeanette for her blogs and how she manages to post almost every day!

I have some snaps of my girls from the last week - I am so incredibly blessed to be the mother of two absolutely beautiful girls!

Just for good measure here is a sunset shot I took a few days ago, lol I had to stand on my daughters trampoline and she thought it was playtime, I am surprised its in focus!!

Till next time *wink*

Wordless Wednesday

2008-07-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

More Wordless Wednesday here

A few new pics of Saige :)

2008-07-07T05:24:00.000-07:00

Flood Pics

2008-07-03T08:02:00.000-07:00

Here are pics of the floods at Shelley Beach last week as promised. Sorry they are late - time just ran away with me!

This was the beach on Monday around lunchtime. I noticed those marks on the top left of the photo and after changing lenses realised it was the camera that was dirty. Jase managed to clean it for me.

This was the same beach 3 days later!! You can not imagine what was washed up - it was interesting walking among the debris!

I found a couple of dolls heads lying around, I found that very strange!

The beach was littered with dead fish. I think they are fresh water fished washed down the river into the ocean.

The trees washed up were ginormous!! Imagine a beach littered with trees like this and you can maybe imagine the storm that brought them there.

The golf course. You would be forgiven for thinking this was a river!

Debris on the beach.

A new moon after all the chaos. I love this shot!

Thanks for visiting :) :)

Some pics from our holiday

2008-06-25T10:59:00.000-07:00

We just spent a week on the coast and what promised to be a lovely holiday soon turned into mayhem. The first two days we were there we had lovely weather ,the sea was calm and blue not unlike a lake. Then Tuesday morning the rain and wind started and what ensued was the worst floods the region has seen for the last 40 years.

This was sunrise the first morning, around 6.30 am - one looking up the beach to the left (this is where the sun rose) and the other looking down the beach to the right.

My baby and her footsies in the sand lol. She really didnt know what to make of the sand.

My eldest daughter and my dad walking on the beach, I used my 70/300 here as they were miles away lol.

Eldest daughter climbing a sand hill hehehe

I love that on this pic the shutter speed was just right to catch the water drops.

Two more pics where I used the 70/300 - see how calm and blue the sea is in the second pic? You can not get better then that!!

I'll post the flood pics shortly :)

Wordless Wednesday

2008-06-25T10:51:00.000-07:00

You can see more Wordless Wednesday pics here

Wordless Wednesday

2008-06-04T09:58:00.001-07:00

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F is for Fun :)

2008-06-03T04:14:00.001-07:00

So I'm still with photographing people :) My daughter was fooling around in the garden on the trampoline yesterday afternoon - I played around with my shutter settings and got some good snaps - the sun was just setting though so there was a bit of an orange glow on pretty much everything :) I love the mid-air shot :)

E is for Elegant

2008-06-02T01:56:00.000-07:00

I decided to try start taking more pics of people as my skills as far as that goes are severly lacking. I actually had a thought of selling my camera this weekend because I am so bad at it lol.

I had to buy Lemon a new ballet outfit as hers was taken from school, so I thought I would take some pics of her in her new outfit. Ballet is elegant right? lol.

I tried the black and white setting on my camera - and yup I need some more practise me thinks :)

Wordless Wednesday - Rose amongst the thorns

2008-05-28T09:41:00.000-07:00

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E,F and G are gone :(

2008-05-19T04:25:00.000-07:00

I took some great photos this weekend, when I tried downloading them my CF card gave me an error , I couldnt fix it :( Only thing I could do was format the card. It seems to be working ok now - will go out later and get some more pics. In the mean time, I wanted to share these pics with you. They are my all time favourites :)

This one was taken at Sun City - the lizards was on a rock about 5 metres away, I used my 75/300 Lense and lay on my tummy to get this shot lol

We were playing tennis the one afternoon and there was this lone sun flower growing next to the courts. I love how bright the petals look in contrast to the sky.

This was taken at the Dolphin show at Ushaka Marine World. The dolphins were about 20 meters away and I used my 75/300 lense here, and I had no tripod. I am super proud of this shot as I managed to firstly catch the dolphins as they jumped out the water and that my focus was spot on.

This is my daughter on a beach in Ballito. I think the photo has an artsy feel to it, lol. I will probably print an enlarged pic and maybe block mount it :)

"D" is for Daughter

2008-05-08T08:50:00.001-07:00

The flu bug paid a visit to me this morning so I was really not up to going on a walkabout. I was thinking what to photograph for "D" within my home, so came up with Daughter. I am really not great at photographing people, my colours are always wrong and the pics never really look great.

I took about 30 shots of my daugher Saige, all of them had that orange cushion - I should have seen it lol. The colours here too look a bit washed out - I used manual settings here but didnt take note of them. I think I need to do some reading on photographing people :)

"C" is for Cacti or Cosmos

2008-05-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

I wanted to try and capture some of the neighbours cats that come through my garden during the day, Murphy's Law today they stayed away, lol. So, I went on a walkabout today and found some Cacti and some Cosmos.

I decided to shoot setting my shutter speeds only - the camera set the aperture automatically.

This is the inside of a cactus I found. I really like the shadows on the left, it gives some dimension don't you think?

This was another cactus I found, the Aloe. The color here is slightly off, my white balance was off I think. I didn't change that.

I love how this one came out - the aloe was rather tall so I shot this looking up. The sky came so blue! A perfect winter afternoon :)

Heres the Cosmos - I was so surprised to find a few, normally I have only seen them on the side of the road. The cosmos was also more pink in real life - I really need to work on my settings more, specifically ISO and White Balance.

I have no clue what to shoot for D - will give it loads of thought :)

B is for Berries

2008-04-25T12:13:00.000-07:00

So today was "B" - on my walkabout yesterday I remembered seeing a shrub with Berries, hence they are today's subject.

I am really pleased with the result - I feel I got all my settings spot on here. Lets hope I am on the right track :)

See you tomorrow for "C"

We start at A :)

2008-04-24T04:07:00.000-07:00

So I have had my Canon 350D for over a year now but still taking sub standard pictures.

I have been using it on "auto" settings as I have just not got the hang of using my Aperture, shutter and ISO settings correctly.

As I am now on leave for a few months I decided to "conquer the beast" lol.

I decided to pick the them A-Z and everyday will take a pic of something representing a letter of the alphabet :)

Today is A - so I chose Autumn. Most of the trees in my complex are evergreen, so today I strapped my baby in her kango pouch, and with camera in hand we went hunting for any autumn foliage.

I managed to find 2 trees and a shrub - lol. All pictures I post will be resized and maybe cropped but no photoshopping :)

Hopefully by the time I get to Z I would have got the hang of things :)

Here's the first pic - I really liked how the leaves looked from behind, the sun seemed to really highlight the colors. I am rather pleased with how it came out.

These leaves were on the same tree - these are with the sun behind me.

This was another little shrub that I found, The colours dont look so vivid here. I think my white balance may have been off or my aperture wasnt right?

And I just had to include this last pic of my noo noo sleeping in the Autumn sun ;)

See you tomorrow for "B" :)