Day 271

This is a photo of one of the fridge magnets on my fridge, courtesy of my lovely 50 mm lens. It's called a 'kiwiana jandal', which will be gobbledegook to you unless you've visited New Zealand. Kiwiana is the collective name that New Zealanders give to New Zealand cultural icons, and jandal is the Kiwi word for flip-flop.

I sold the yurt yesterday. Given that it was badly damaged in the storm that blew it down, and that very few people are puddled enough to want to live in a yurt, I thought I'd never sell it, but it had sold within a day of listing it on Trade Me. I'm elated at having sold it, as you can imagine. It's a big thing to have lurking in your shed, let alone your subconscious! But I'm also sad at having to sell it. It was our home for a while and I loved it. Despite the sadness, the overall feeling is one of optimism. The fact that I've sold the yurt gives me renewed hope that I will be able to find a buyer for the house.

Anyway, I'd better dash. I'm off to yoga class.

Day 231

Today has turned into Portrait Tuesday.

I took this shot of Iain with the Canon and the 50 mm lens.

I took this selfie using the iPhone's front-facing camera.

I took this shot of Pookie with the iPhone's better camera. She looks like she's being engulfed by her own fluff!

And here's Pookie's newest toy, Marcie the Mouse, taken with the Hipstamatic app on the iPhone.

Day 226

It's been such a cold, grey and miserable day today, that I didn't fancy going outside for a photo shoot. Instead, I stayed indoors and had one last go at shooting the roses, this time using the 50 mm lens. Although you can't get a close-up with it, it's okay for taking a shot of the whole bunch of flowers, so I went for some depth of focus shots, making the most of the lens's ability to open up to f/1.8.

Today is my birthday, and to celebrate we're going away for the weekend tomorrow, so I won't be making any posts for a few days, but I'll still be taking photos.

Have a great weekend!

Day 215

We've had more wild weather today, after a very wild night, with gales, torrential rain and thunderstorms. We don't get many thunderstorms here, but whenever we do, it's always during the winter, which seems very odd, as in the UK they're a summer phenomenon.

One advantage of all this wet weather is that we've now got some water in our tanks, and, after priming the pump, in our taps. We still need to be incredibly stingy with water, otherwise we'll run out again before the track gets repaired and the water bloke can come and top us up. But it's great to be able to have a shower again, even if we do have to limit our showers to no more than three minutes!

In celebration, I thought I'd try a 'frozen water' shot using my new 50 mm lens. I fancied having another go at a shower head shot (which failed last time I tried it due to the slowness of my f/5.6 kit lens). However, in the interests of saving water, I thought I'd better shoot a dripping tap instead!