Day 365

I made this origami butterfly for today's final shot.

It's only six weeks until I fly away myself, back home to the UK, after spending seven years in New Zealand. Although I know it's the right decision, it's going to be heart-wrenching to leave behind the sweet little feline soul who's been my constant companion for the last six years, the home that Iain and I spent over two years building, and all the wonderful friends I've made since I've lived here.

This project has meant so much more to me than simply a way to make myself take more photos. I started the project in December 2010, around the same time that Iain began the affair with the colleague he would eventually leave me for. Of course, I didn't know this at the time, but looking back now, I realise that one of the main reasons I started the project was because I was feeling lonely. I was stuck out in the middle of nowhere on my own, without a car, and starved of attention from a husband who was 'working' longer and longer hours. Keeping a daily blog was a way of connecting with other people. And I'm so glad I did, because I got to connect (or re-connect) with all of you!

If you've ever visited this blog before, I'd like to say 'thank you'. If you've ever commented on one of my posts, then thanks a million. If you're a regular commenter, well, what can I say? I honestly couldn't have made it through the last thirteen months without you. I mean it. You're friggin' awesome! :-)

Love from Helen x

Day 355 & Retrospective: still life

This morning I spotted these two insects copulating on the ceiling of my veranda. They stayed like this for at least half an hour, perfectly immobile. They couldn't have been having much fun!

As I've not got any other shots of insects having sex --  ;-)  -- today's retrospective will have to be on another subject. I've chosen still life. I find still life shots very challenging to take; I don't know why. I've been less than happy with most of the still life shots I've taken during this project, so I was pleasantly surprised when I found quite a few of them that were good enough to include here.

Day 346

I've no idea where the idea for this image came from. Probably not a good idea to probe too deeply!

Day 335

I'm only just going to make it in time for today's post - it's a quarter to midnight! It was our book club Christmas party tonight, and we had a meal at a pub in town and exchanged presents. I gave a framed print of one of my photos, and I was given a pair of beautiful handmade Christmas tree decorations in the shape of native New Zealand birds. I love them!

This one's a morepork (Māori name: ruru) - the only remaining native owl.

This one's a fantail (Māori name: pīwakawaka) - the gorgeous little bird I named my house after.

Day 332

Today I've been very busy and the weather's been very wet; neither of which is conducive to leisurely, artistically satisfying photo breaks.

The Law of Cat, Number 2: No matter how copious and dewy fresh the water in a cat's water bowl is, he or she will always prefer to drink from another, 'tastier' source.

I almost always eat porridge for breakfast, and I leave my bowl to soak for a few hours before putting it in the dishwasher. I caught Pookie drinking the porridge water this morning. This, of course, is not the most disgusting thing she's ever drunk. Not by a long way.

With only five weeks of this project to go now, I asked my Facebook friends to suggest some theme words as a starting point for photographs to keep me inspired in the final weeks. They came up with lots of ideas, and these next shots were inspired by two of them.

'Moving' suggested by Myfanwy

'Reflections' suggested by Carin

Day 328

When Iain and I emigrated, we left behind a lot of things in the UK, including our Christmas decorations. I've missed them over the last six Christmases, but Iain was against buying new ones, as he considered it a waste of money. So today, partly to cheer myself up, and partly to cock a snook at Iain, I bought myself a new tree, lights and baubles in a half-price sale.  I think Pookie must be feeling ill, because she hasn't tried to climb the Christmas tree yet. She hasn't even tried to bat a bauble. Maybe she's saving up her attack for tonight, while I'm asleep!

If you voted in November's Top Pic(k)s poll, thanks! This month two photos tied for first place: 'A Star is born' and 'Heart in hand'.

Day 327

It was spinning and weaving again today, and we went to a member's house that I'd not visited before. She has a beautiful home and garden, but it started raining almost as soon as I went outside to take photos, and these three images were the only decent shots I got. They're all courtesy of my lovely 50 mm lens.

Day 316

I've had a go at the shot with the hammer.

I've made two versions, but I'm not sure which one works better.

In Version 1 the focus is on the hammer, with the strawberry out of focus.

In version 2 the focus is on the strawberry, with the hammer out of focus. I've also added motion blur to the hammer in Photoshop, to try to create the impression of the hammer swinging down.

I'd be interested to know which version you prefer, and why.

Day 315

I bought a punnet of strawberries at the supermarket today because a) I love strawberries, b) they're in season here and c) I had an idea for a photo shoot. My idea was to use a strawberry to represent a heart, but I didn't think to look at the shape of the strawberries in the punnet. They were all long and thin; shaped more like radishes than strawberries!

My favourite photo gear at the moment is white printer paper. Lots of pieces overlapped make a great background for indoor shots, and it's easy to erase the joins in Photoshop.

Is this hand protecting the strawberry, or about to crush it?

Experimenting with making something delicious look disgusting:

I was hoping the fork poised over the strawberry like this would look threatening, but it doesn't look threatening at all. I think that's because you expect to see the two together, and a fork is associated with eating rather than with violence. Thinking about it now, I should have got the hammer out of the shed and held it over the strawberry. I've still got some strawberries left. I'll try out the hammer idea tomorrow.

Day 314

Today's wild, wet and windy weather hasn't helped me in my effort to break out of my photo slump. But however frustrating things get, I'm not giving up on this project. Sooner or later I'll find a subject that inspires me, I'll get a shot I'm pleased with, and I'll be enthused all over again.

Marg's roses are starting to die already.

The next shot is of my salad servers. I bought them in Cape Town when I went to South Africa on business in 2006. I love the colours of the beads. Mmm, shiny! :-)

Days 303 and 304

Day 303: An observation

Day 304: An invocation

Day 302

One of the advantages of being left on your own is that you find you have a lot more free time than you ever had before. Time is the only thing we ever really 'have' in this life, and suddenly finding that you have a lot more of it feels like a blessing. I'm aware that the majority of women my age are so busy in their roles as wives and mothers that they have very little free time. So I've resolved to become better at time management, and use my free time as constructively and positively as I can, with the exception of a little ITD (Internet Time Dilation) now and again. ;-)

Today the weather's been cold and wet, so I decided to stay indoors and do some life planning brainstorming. Apart from making the decision to sell the house and move back to the UK, I've not made any major decisions about my future since Iain left, and I think that it's time I did. I'm finally starting to think straight again, and doing some planning is certainly better than sitting and twiddling my thumbs while I wait for the house to sell. Today's photo shows my brainstorming session in progress. I normally do all my writing on the computer, but for anything like this I always prefer to do it by hand, so that I can spread out all over the floor. I feel like I get a better overview of things that way.

I know I said I was beginning to think straight again, but I must have had a relapse yesterday, because I got my hair dyed red. I only went into the hairdresser's for a bit of a trim, but I came out looking like a Belisha beacon!

Now that I'm past the 300 day mark with this project I'm looking around for a project within a project: a hook to hang the last two months' worth of photos on, that will help me keep motivated and engaged. If you've got any suggestions for what I could do, I'd love to hear them.

Day 300

I really wanted to get an interesting and unusual shot for day 300, but it didn't look as though that was going to happen. I've got a writing deadline tomorrow, which means I need to get lots of work done today, particularly after being ill for a couple of days. I knew I wouldn't have time to take off on a photo walk. The neighbours have taken their cattle off the land, and even Harry and Nemo have gone (shipped off down south; don't worry, they're both fine!) This means I'm left with just grass, weeds and a cat as potential subjects. So it was with a heavy heart that I carried the Canon down to the mailbox today. On the way back I took a bit of a detour across the lower paddock, and I spotted the sun coming out from behind the clouds, reflected in the algae-festooned water of the drinking trough.

I'm a huge space nerd, and this photo reminds me of an image from the Hubble space telescope, so I'm really pleased with it. I always used to think that the best shots always came when you went out with a particular idea in mind, but now I'm not so sure. Sometimes, just sometimes, good shots can arise when you have absolutely no idea what you're doing, but you're open to spotting and taking opportunities when they come along. So I guess photography's a bit like life, really!

Day 297

Pookie and I found a magpie feather on our way back from the mailbox today. My photographic skills don't do it justice; it's very beautiful. I tried some almost-macro shots showing just a small part of the feather, but none of them looked as good as the feather in its entirety. I suppose an ideal photo of a feather would be huge, so that you could stand back and look at the whole thing, but also get close and see all the detail too. Come to think of it, I reckon every photo should be like that! :-)

Day 295

I woke up this morning with a raging sore throat, so I've stayed at home today rather than going on a photo walk. This is the first time I've been ill since Iain left, and I'm really surprised I've made it this long (11 weeks). Like a lot of people, I almost always fall ill straight after an emotional upset.

I decided to have another go at shooting smoke today. I attempted it a few months ago, but I wasn't pleased with the results. I'm happier with what I've managed to get today.

Here's the final image:

This is the original shot, straight out of the camera:

I cropped the image (a square crop worked best for this particular smoke pattern), and then I played around with the contrast slider, blacks slider and tone curve in Lightroom to get the background as dark as I could. I then inverted the image in Photoshop, to give dark smoke against a light background. Finally I brought the image back into Lightroom. I applied the 'purple glasses' preset and tweaked it until I got an effect I liked. Finally, I made the smoke as fluid-looking as possible by reducing the clarity and adding a fair amount of noise reduction.

Day 293

I've sold my spinning wheel, so I've had to find something else to do during spinning and weaving meetings. I've started knitting a scarf that I thought might a) keep me warm and b) cheer me up when I land in a wintry Britain. With the housing market in the depressed state it's in at the moment, it'll be summer in the northern hemisphere by the time I get there. Summer 2013, probably!

Day 291

I was so busy yesterday, I completely forgot to make a post to this blog. Today I finally got round to listing the very last items that I want to sell on Trade Me (apart from one of the sheds, which I can't sell until the yurt has been picked up, because I'm storing the yurt in it). My wedding ring was among the items I put up for sale, and I fancied doing something 'arty' with one of the photos I had to take. Although looking at my wedding ring fills me with anguish right now, I think in the future I might appreciate a keepsake of it.

Day 287

Today I got an offer I couldn't refuse...from a bottle of water.

Day 282

My first piece of retail therapy since Iain left (apart from the new bedclothes): a new pair of shoes. Red, naturally! ;-)

The first shot is an attempt at something arty. I wibbled the iPhone around so that the shoes would be blurred. I then applied a cross-processing preset in Lightroom and cloned out the huge manufacturer's name on the inside of the shoes.

Here's a more conventional shot of the shoes (for those of you - okay, let's be honest, the women - who want to know what they look like).

Day 273

The weather has been wet all day again, as the forecast promised. Lisa Gordon commented on yesterday's post that she likes to buy and photograph flowers when it's wet, and I think that's an excellent idea. I've not had the opportunity to go into town to get any flowers yet. In the meantime, I thought I'd photograph the embroidered flowers on my favourite cardigan.

I only bought this cardigan a few months ago, and I was wearing it on the day Iain told me he was leaving. So I now think of it as my 'new life cardigan'. The black represents my mourning over the loss of our marriage, and the rosebuds signify the hope of one day being able to 'bloom anew' (as Melissa put it in her haiku).