Not much going on at the moment. I've had a few quiet-ish days of late, just hanging out around the house and working on a video project I'd committed myself to.

I haven't even been taking many photos so I had to start making an effort for my "photo a day" promise I made to myself. There's a couple of days missing, but here's the days I did take stuff:

Monday, October 23rd


Tuesday, October 24th



Thursday, October 26th

Labels: photos

After some very last-minute arrangements yesterday afternoon, a few mates and I went out to Willowbank Raceway for a Test n Tune night. At these nights for $36 you can have as many goes at the quarter mile as you want. Seeing as it was $18 just to spectate I decided to have a crack, but limited myself to only 3 runs so I didn't break anything in the car (especially the clutch and/or gearbox).

All three of my runs were sub-15s, with the fastest a 14.533s @ 156km/h (97mph). Pretty happy with that, seeing as my only real mod is running about 3psi more than factory boost. The car survived, as did all my mates cars, so good times were had by all (no pun intended).

As promised, here's my photo-a-day's from the last two days:

Wednesday, Oct 18th


Thursday, Oct 19th

Labels: photos

I picked up a new camera on Saturday - a Canon 30D. As much as I liked my old 300D, this camera is just that bit more of a joy to use, and has a bit more control over some of the settings.

A photography forum I'm on has a "one photograph per day" challenge that I'm going to try to contribute to daily, just to try and extend my range of abilities. Here's what I have so far:

Sunday, Oct 15th



Monday, Oct 16th

I actually have a few good shots from Sunday. I submitted this one:

But I also took these, too:





Tuesday, Oct 17th



I may not post here every day, but I'll try to post as often as I can, just for something to put on the site. Enjoy! :D

Labels: photos

That's how long it took us for the return trip up Mt Warning yesterday. We took it fairly casually, stopping to rest and check out the view or the flora & fauna at regular intervals.

The chain was worse than I'd remembered, but being not so good with heights I think I'd repressed those memories. After having a couple of "what the hell am I doing?" moments I finished the scramble to the top, narrowly avoiding freezing up completely a couple of times.

Once at the top I took some photos while we had some lunch (and, for a couple of the guys, a few beers). The packet of chips that Marc is holding was a reminder of how high up we were.

When we had regained our composure again and had repressed enough of the memories of the trip up, we began the descent. I used the camera a bit on the way down - the trip up was hard enough without having the camera in one hand - however it doesn't really do it much justice:



So I now have 3 climbs under my belt, and am already thinking it would be nice to do a fourth one day. It is one of the most terrifying and exhausting things I've ever done in my life, but finding I have the determination and strength to complete it, coupled with the feeling of being at the top (which is a mixture of the view, the serenity, and I think the lack of oxygen), it is a very rewarding experience.

Labels: photos, videos

After thinking I might get some free time to myself again now that work on the track day photos has died down, I still seem to be flat out either taking photos, or working on something somewhat photo related.

I got a last-minute offer to go to the Bullets game last night to take photos. So after getting home from work I madly checked battery charge and emptied off flash cards to be at the game at 7:30pm. The night went fairly well, although my camera is too slow and my knees are too old. I haven't had a chance to go through all the photos yet, but here's a few:










Then this morning was the Broncos ticker tape parade in the city to celebrate their premiership victory. So, of course, I took my camera gear to work to get some photos. In my rush to get to work early enough for the parade I left my wallet at home so had to be let into the office each time I came and went. In four and a half years in my current job I think that's the first time I've left my wallet at home.

Anyway, here's the photos from the parade:









Again, I was fighting against my camera to try and fire off enough shots in rapid succession, so I spent the rest of the day thinking budgets etc to work out how long I have to wait before I can afford a 30D. I'm also hoping to upgrade my 70-200 f/4 L lens to a 70-200 f/2.8 L in the next month or so as well.

In the meantime I need to submit my tax return before the end of the month, which I unfortunately owe $500 on. This was due to me advising work that I had private health care at the start of the financial year, but then forgetting to actually get it till almost the end of the year. Hello 1% surcharge :(

Tonight I've been doing some coding on a new gallery that David and I are working on out of frustration at the lack of anything out there that suits our needs. So it's 12:26am and I just finished upgrading fulllockphotos.com to be the first site in the world to use the new Soora engine. I think it's a sign of my current sleep patterns that instead of deciding to go to bed once the upgrade was finished, I felt I needed to blog about it. Hmmm...

Saturday is shaping up to be a great day. A group of us are going to climb Mt Warning, just across the border. At over 1100m (3700ft) it's a fair hike, so it's going to take the better part of the day. The forecast is looking good and I'm really looking forward to reaching the summit for the third time. The camera will (of course) be travelling with me, so I'm sure I'll post photos of it sometime next week.

I guess I should actually get some sleep at some stage between now and then. Oh, we have some 10-minute massage people coming in to work tomorrow. That is going to be sooo good.

Labels: photos