The Ten Tenors

Among the many sad and terrible things that have happened at school this term, yesterday something fantastic happened; the Ten Tenors came to school to sing for us. As a result we were offered tickets for their concert last night for half price (buy one get one free).

As my husband was staying in Sydney for work, I asked my voice teacher and close friend if he wanted to come with me. We headed into Civic Theatre for a fantastic night out!

They started with a few classical numbers which, for me, was the really good stuff. To start with, I thought they were miming because they were so precise and together. Then I worked out that they were actually singing and that just blew my mind.

For quite a while I couldn't work out if they were wearing different coloured jackets or if they were all the same but different under different lights. Finally we determined that they were in fact different colours with the longer serving members wearing darker jackets. Well that's our theory anyway.

Their classical numbers were so smooth and warm. The particular stand out for me was "Bring Him Home" from the famous musical "Les Miserables". The soloist floated effortlessly over the top of the accompaniment, I had goose bumps all over!

"Pie Jesu" was particularly exiting for me as this is a piece that I sing with my mother. However these guys made it sound like it's not as high as it really is. They were all very good at making it all look so easy, it's hard not to be jealous.

Right towards the end they treated us with their arrangement of "Nessun Dorma". I always love this piece and think that it's really quite hard to achieve. But when you have Ten Tenors that are all so talented, you hear this song in a way that you have never heard it before. There was so much power and yet it wasn't over sung; so much intensity yet it wasn't overwhelming. It was simply magnificent.

I must say that, while their pop songs were great, I much preferred their classical numbers. Their final number and third encore was "Hey Jude" from the Beatles.

We were able to meet them in the foyer after. They are all warm happy people. They were so happy to chant with us, sign autographs and take pictures with us. I actually felt quite star struck and was on quite a high for a while after but it was a fabulous experience!

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Location:Civic Theatre, Newcastle

Sunset

I have this wierd obession with sky and clouds and I love to photograph them particulary interesting clouds. This afternoon I saw the most beautiful sunset and managed to capture this to share with you all.









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Location:Freemans Waterhole

Music!

I'm not usually the sort of person to sprout forth about my musical performances but this one is different.

I play trumpet with a group called Watagan Brass Quintet and we are performing at the Avondale College Evensong this Sabbath afternoon at 4.30pm. We are joining forces with the Lakeside Brass Quintet to produce some fantastic music. We start with a fabulous fanfare (I cant remember the composer) and also a few combined pieces by Giovanni Gabrielli. We will also do a few pieces seperately.

I really think it will be a fabulous musically experience and I'm really excited about it, so do try to come along!

Avondale College Church, 4.30pm, Saturday 4 June

New Camera

Greetings Followers!

As you are all aware, I don't actually have my own camera and am therefore struggling to keep up with my attempts at photography.

I have recently received a donation, from someone who will remain annonymus, of a full camera kit. I want to sincerely thank this person for their generous donation and hope that I can make them proud of me and my work.

This means that I will hopefully continue making images and sharing them with you all without any further interruption.

You may also notice that I have changed the tag line for my blog. It is now "...the adventures of a try-hard photographer and musician..." A friend has recently made me aware that music is just as big a part of my life as is photography. Therefore I have decided to include my musical thoughts, experiences and performances with you.

Hope you enjoy!

Pumpkin Pie

Finally, I have found a few minutes to tell you about my pumpkin pie.


I dont really have a recipe that I can link for you because I have combined a few recipes to make something that I like. So I will insert my version below.

Crust
250g Plain Flour
125g Butter
1 Egg

Combine all ingredients in a food processor until it resembles bread crumbs.
Refridgerate for approx. 20 mins.
Roll until 3mm thick and place in greased pie dish.
Blind bake for 10-15 minutes at 180.

Filling
500g Cooked Pumpkin (I usually use butternut)
300ml thickened cream
2 Eggs
2/3 cup brown sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg

Combine all ingredients in food processor until mixed and smooth.
Pour into crust and bake at 160 for approx. 45 minutes.

Its great to serve it with some fresh whipped cream.

Enjoy!

Introduction to Food

Every Wednesday we have a bunch of students at our place to watch the latest episode of Glee. Because of this my hubby has decided to cook something different for dinner each week and has created a blog about his food - Handful of Yum.

Because of this I decided that I would attempt to cook a new dessert each week and use it as a phototography exercise. And while I don't have "my" camera, my husbands is always around as long as he isn't working.

My first attempt was Lemon Meringue Tarts.

The camera's not mine

Unfortunately I have been really busy and havent been able to photograph anything recently, thus the lack of blogging for a couple of weeks.

So over the weekend I thought I would take some time to go our and attempt to be creative. That was until I discovered that what I thought was my camera, is actually not. It has now been lent out to a student who needs it for a class until the end of the semester.

This means that I won't be able to take any photos or blog until at least June unless I can borrow my husbands camera.

I know that you are all devestated for me but life must go on and I have dealt with it so I hope you all can.

Keep Clicking!

Behind the Scenes

Last weekend I had the privilege of helping Kent Marcus and Levi Gardner at a fashion shoot for the Beaumont Street Food and wine Festival. The models had two outfits each. One from the lingere store Sassy Essentials, and one evening wear from Katillys Boutique. The hair was done by Goop Hair and Body and the Makeup by Tranzformations & Eye Candy. Here are a few images I managed to capture during the process.

Be warned, this post is going to get a little technical, but stick with me. This was a great learning experience for me.

There were four setups. The first, seen below, was a grey paisley backdrop for close head shots. For this, Kent used a large octagonal soft box to light the models.




The second was a back drop that the guys had made the previous evening, literally. They had used newspaper and very roughly painted it onto the back of some laminate with cheap white paint. This gives a really interesting effect. For this set up, Levi was using a large octagonal light box as well. It seemed to be the light of choice for the day.







The third set up was a whit seemless paper roll for the backdrop and a white reflective board for the floor. You can see this on the right of the image below. For this setup, Kent used two lights, one on either side of the model, in order to blow out the background and creat a clear image in the reflective surface on the floor.



The final setup, picture below, was a large sequin fabric and a large square soft box.


Here I have attempted to make a little something of one of the images I managed to capture.



Of course, the guys were shooting tethered, so there was no need for cards and everything could be checked instantly. Kent's assistant and stylist was constantly making sure that they got the images they needed before moving on.



The shoot was actually secondary to the fashion show that was being put on for the Beaumont Street Food and Wine Festival. Here are some of my shots from the Runway.






A little bit of advertising at the end for good measure

London - England

London was the last location for the music study tour and was possibly my favourite city of the whole trip. While we did get to see a lot of the sights we spent most of our time visiting composors houses that have become museums and going to several musicals including Les Miserable, The Phantom of the Opera and Love Never Dies.

Wellington Arch

Newbold College

Buckingham Palace
The flag was flying when I was there so the Queen was there too!

Parliament House and Big Ben from the London Eye

The White Tower or the Tower of London

St Johns Chapel inside the Tower of London

Tower Bridge
Some think this is London Bridge but actually thats down river a bit

The London Eye and The London Aquarium

An old London Telephone Booth

Some London Bobbies out on patrol in the dismal London Rain

Filters

My hubby and I recetnly celebrated our 5th Wedding Anniversary but taking the day off and heading into the city. One of our activities was to go to the Power House Museum (which I have never been to before) while I only had my little point-and-shoot camera I still snapped a few shoots.

Once the photos were on the computer I decided to explore some of the menu options a little more and discovered filters and had a little play with them. This is one of my shots from the Power House Musuem and this is how it turned out...

In this one, I have de-saturated it, added the graphic pen filter a little as well as a bit of a vignette, amongst other things.

Name Change

Hi Everyone

I've spoken with some many people recently about the problems with the internet and security of your identity so I have chosen to change the name of my blog in order to exclude my name from it (albeit only my first name). This is a small attempt to protect my identity.

Sorry if this is annoying or confusing but it has been waying on my for quite some time and I have finally decided to make thie shift.

Thanks and Happy Valentines Day!

Vivid - Sydney Light Festival

I had the pleasure of visiting the Sydney Light Festival in winter of last year with lots of wonderful friends. My husband found it much more interesting to entertain our neighbours 3 year old than to take photos. So I proceeded to use his camera to entertain myself. Here is the result.