New picture-snappers!

Here are some new additions to my little camera family. It's actually not so little anymore, my camera obsession is showing no signs of simmering down! But I keep telling myself that's okay because I never spend alot on cameras and they'll make for one epic collection to pass on to the kidlets one day! When I get some free time, I'm gonna snap the whole lot so I can remember 'em forevez incase they fade or whatnot throughout the years. What sort of things do you guys collect?

Thank you Mom Heather for the Polaroid - I absolutely adore it, the box and the camera bulbs. Thank you Mel for treating me to some thrifting loot so I could get the Brownie! Nadia spotted it and I'm so thrilled with it. And thank you to my other girlfriends for spoiling me rotten on my birthday - I got the practical things I needed but I couldn't resist this vintage video beauty as well! x

Interpret Durban (my un-entered snaps)

Last Friday was the 2nd annual Interpret Durban Party/Exhibit at the City Hall. I blogged about last year's one here. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to attend this year's event but these are two pics I snapped the day before submissions were due. To be honest, I hadn't realised there was a photography category this year until a week before...probably due to laziness on my part. By then I had run out of time to plan a shoot of shorts but as I was driving home on Sunday, I saw these kids playing about with a public telephone on Umbilo Road. The theme for this year's event was Rediscover, Reconnect, Reveal - and I thought these cute kids using a phone sort of spoke to that theme. I hopped out of the car to snap them but unfortunately, I didn't get the best pics - the kids were adorable but my lighting and compositions were off. Spontaneous snaps on sketchy roads aren't the easiest I guess! I was a bit shy to enter them because I knew the standard would be really high. Silly of me really because the spirit of the event is more celebratory rather that judge-tory! I believe the proceeds of the event auction went to Umthombo Street Children which is awesome. Anyhow, here are the pics. The kids were wonderful and sweet to let me snap 'em. Props to everyone who entered and helped co-ordinate the event. I think it is a brilliant thing for Durban to look forward to.

Cupcake Couture Goodies!

Huzzah! So these are some of the shots from our day of happy snapping. Let me tell ya - editing these puppies was a mission of note! I did the entire batch in Photoshop, went to print some to check the colour and realised they were totally over-saturated. Cheers to my screen not being properly calibrated! Then I re-edited the whole lot in Lightoom and under saturated 'em. Grief! I tinkered a bit more and even tonight I was still tinkering with the colour on some of them. Anyway, sweet Nadia said she was happy with them so that's good. I love taking photographs but man, I do not cope well with the pressure of shooting for other people. Fortunately Nads is like my little cheerleader! Speaking of Nads, she is making so many wonderful corsages at the mo...corsages for every occasion including weddings, birthdays, you name it! If you're ever after some vintagey, whimsical ideas, Nads is your girl! You can find Nadia on Blogger, Twitter and Facebook. x

A colourful day!

The internet is fixed and for the first time in an age, I have some pics to post! I've actually really enjoyed taking a break from snapping and blogging (as much as I used to) because sometimes it's just nice to take a break from things... but on Saturday, I whipped out le Canon for a fun shoot with my sweet pal, Nadia. We shot and styled our little hearts out for a new project Nads is working on. Let me tell you - Nadia has the life! And I say this with love and perhaps, just a peppering of jealousy! Nads spends her days crafting in the most beautiful flat and Elle recently did a dreamy feature on her. I'm very proud of my friend. Love ya Nads! With regards to the shoot - I'm pretty chuffed with how the pics turned out and I think we did quite well with our first attempt at styling - stained table clothes and all for backgrounds! These are just some happy snaps from 'behind the scenes' - I hope you enjoy 'em. And yes, we did nosh almost all the props, haha! x

Mornin' Sunshine

How's this for a dose of Monday morning sunshine!?
A talented Durban photographer by the name of Kevin Goss-Ross snapped these pics of my old friend, Portia, who is a full-time singer and mama. I just love the styling, Portia's smile and her little one noshing grapes. Kevin and Portia kindly gave me permission to blog 'em - thanks you two!

Find Kevin on Facebook and Tumblr.

Find Portia on Myspace.

PS: Blogger has been a bit glitchy over the past few days so apologies if you've had trouble commenting/receiving posts/been accidentally spammed with posts!

My camera kit, picture-taking and photo processing

A few new readers wanted to know what camera I use and how I edit my pics. Well,  if you're a beginner on a budget like me, you may be pleased to know that my set-up is super basic and the editing is quick sticks. If you're pro with loot to spare, you may enjoy a few lols reading this!

My Camera

I have the Canon 1000D aka the entry level Canon DSLR! I would liked to have gotten one of the fancier ones but I only had enough in the piggy bank for this guy. None-the-less, I think it's a great buy for a beginner or anyone on a budget. You can read my 'wildly incoherent' review on it here. 

 My Lens(es)

I alternate between the stock lens on the 1000D (18-55mm) and the Canon 1.8 50mm lens aka, the Nifty Fifty! I got mine for just under R1000 which I think is very reasonable for a lens. I love the Fifty because it's great for shooting portraits and objects - my fave things to snap! You can focus on a specific object while gently blurring the background, creating a sweet depth of field. Also, the 'Fifty' works a charm in low light situations. The Canon 1.4 50mm is even better but that remains on my wish list for now. I can't tell you how many people have seeing me snapping with the 'Fifty', and declared 'Hey, Nifty Fifty!' Ok, seven people. About seven people have done that. Apparently it's a fave of photogs worldwide! Oh, I also have the Canon 430 EX Flashgun which is surprisingly powerful but I barely use it.

Taking Photos

As far as possible, I like to shoot in natural light. Early mornings and mid-late afternoons are best when the light is golden. I suppose I've always sub-consciously tried to follow the 'Rule of Thirds' which this post explains really well. If I could offer any advice, I'd encourage you to not let feeling shy keep ya from snapping. I often feel like a complete nutter hoisting out my DSLR and shooting some random salt shaker but I'm always glad I did it afterwards!

Editing photos

Basicially, I do the easiest thing ever with them - I just run Photoshop actions over them! All the actions I use are the freebies from Night Fate on Deviant Art. You simply download the action to your computer, double click the file and bam, it appears in the Actions toolbar on Photoshop.  When you've opened your photo in Photoshop, you hit the 'Play' button and the action gives your picture an awesome treatment! Some people say it's cheating but I say, 'Eh, cheating, shmeating.' Ready-made actions are quick and easy for peeps like me who just enjoy editing pics for the fun of it. Sometimes, I give actions a skip in favour of adjusting the contrast/brighteness/levels/selected colours etc in Photoshop. Lightroom is another great program for editing pics but my laptop isn't powerful enough to run it. Photoscape and Gimp are fun freebie photography programs I used before Photoshop.

And that's it really - super simple! You can find some photography tutorials I've linked to here.
If you have any other photography questions, please feel free to fire away in a comment. x

Dear Diana, you naughty little minx

Edit: I've had to reblog this puppy since Blogger's mini-meltdown! Déjà Vu! Oh dear. Me and Lomography cameras. They hate me a little. I know the pics are meant to be kinda crazy but mine hardly ever come out. *Grabs a tissue for her issues!* I finally got around to snapping my first roll of slide film with the Dreamer and had 'em cross processed. Ten out of twelve pics came out. But six of those were mostly...black. Gah! I wouldn't be so frustrated if they weren't such costly experiments. But, I'm gonna have a bash with standard 120mm film and I'm not gonna cross process 'em. We shall see! But here are the four pics that faired alright. The first one is totally inspired by my friend Lauren who took the most amazing pics of the beachfront with her Holga - they were a lot better than this guy! Next up are thrifting rails at the SPCA followed by Craig noshing an ice-cream and then we have some daisies. (Blogger ate the comments for this post but I received 'em, thank you!)