GRASS: Everything has it's beauty

 “Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.”

~ Confucius

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Weekend Flowers: Brisbane Botanic Gardens

I feel honoured to have placed second in Tina's weekend flowers last week. Thank you Tina for hosting.
I hadn't photographed any flowers this week until yesterday when we visited the Brisbane Botanic Gardens. We only stayed a few hours until another terrible storm hit - it's summer storm season in our tropical state. But I did manage to capture a few lovely flowers in between bird photography & a photo shoot my daughter was doing of us.

I couldn't resist the abundance of water lillies on the lagoon.

And also the few in the Tropical Display Dome. I love the reflections in this one.

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Beach Love

“I have always loved the beach. The smell of the salty water, the wind in my face, the gentle roar of the waves all combine to create a sense of peace and calm.” ~Anonymous

More shots from the weekend at Dreamtime Beach, NSW.

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Macro Monday: Grass

My grasses from the farm trip attracted so many comments last week, so I thought I would post some more...

Happy Monday... Have an awesome week!


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Macro Monday @ Lisa's Chaos

Farm Life - Creatures Great & Small

On Sunday we took a drive out to my husband's cousin's farm in Peak Crossing (west of Ipswich, QLD). It was a lovely day - peaceful & relaxing. The scenery is beautiful (more of that later in the week). Here are some of my creature captures.

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Macro Monday @ Lisa's Chaos

 

Water Sport Sunday

On Sunday afternoon we took a drive down to one of my favourite sunset spots - Wellington Point. It's a popular day trip destination all year round but Summer brings out all the extreme water sport fanatics and makes for even more interesting photography.

The kitesurfers are rather amazing to watch... now that's some real "air" he's getting.

Coming in to land...

Touchdown!

And a sharp turn creates some impressive spray...

The sunset was impressive too.

I hope you had a lovely weekend.

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The Best of 2011

2011 has passed, and today a new year has began. I thought it only fitting to post my "best" of 2011. For most of the year I owned a small point and shoot Canon Digital IXUS 950 IS.

JANUARY

FEBRUARY
My prodigal son & my little grandson come into our lives at the end of February under not-so-great circumstances. It was so lovely to spend time with them and to have my son live with us for almost 6 weeks.

MARCH - a month filled with stress & sadness. I was rushed to hospital twice in 2 weeks due to problems with my heart, and my prodigal son disappeared again. I only took 30 photos for the entire month as a result, and nothing was really worthy of posting in my opinion...


APRIL
Brisbane City from Southbank

MAY

JUNE
Brisbane City Hall

JULY
Cedar Creek Winery

AUGUST

My last "best of" with my Canon IXUS 950 IS

And the first with my brand new Canon EOS DSLR 1100D, purchased on August 18th 2011.

Since I bought my new camera it has been so hard to pick a favourite from each month, so perhaps a couple or a few?

SEPTEMBER

I have always loved macro photography.

And I rediscovered my passion for landscapes. This is my city, Brisbane, at dusk. 

OCTOBER

Having a Canon 55-250mm telephoto zoom lens and a tripod gave me the ability to photograph a full moon for the first time ever (and on manual setting).

The same lens allows me to take shots like this - I call it my "stalker lens". There is so much about this photo that I love!!

And my favourote macro for October 

NOVEMBER

We took 2 day trips up the D'Aguillar Range to Mt Nebo.

DECEMBER

I took a 10 day R&R trip to visiti my parents on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria. My favourite sunset of 2011 from Mt Martha beach.

For Christmas, my husband Michael surprised me with a Canon 50mm portrait lens. I am discovering a whole new world of sharpness in my portraits & learning to use the manual setting.

I LOVE these portraits of my youngest 2 children, Ben (20) & Bec (19), taken on Christmas day. I am incredibly proud of these two young adults.

And finally, I owe this man so much.

We have been married for only 2 years (Dec 5, 2009). Between us we have 9 children - Sarah (27), Amy (23), Daniel (22), Ben (20), Tamsyn (20), Bec (19), Kathryn (18), Jess (16) and Lizzie (14).

The last 2 years have been a rollercoaster ride and we almost didn't make it. There have been enormous challenges of sickness & not much health, and not a lot of "better" (until recently) & plenty of "worse". But through his persistence, determination and willingness to make some enormous changes in his own life (and his refusal to allow me to walk away) and through my own soul searching, my decision to focus on thankfulness and writing my Gratitude Journal, which has enabled me to see life from a whole new perspective. It has been incredibly difficult for us both BUT we have made it by the grace of God!!

Here's to 2012... May the new year bring an abundance of laughter, many wonderful memories and, for those photographer friends of mine, many great photography opportunities!!

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