RXA

In a recent email. “Does ‘L’ approve of her activities and photos being plastered over your blog and flickr site?”.

Thank you for your email.

I can assure you that any  appearance of L in written or photographic form is done so at the full knowledge and consent of said person. In fact L often edits my work to avoid me mentioning her bizarre rubber obsession …

Woops … That’s going to come back and bite me in the butt.  Luckily she’s in New Zealand at the moment and I don’t think they have discovered the internet yet. I’m safe for a couple of days.

After gaining permission from my photo editor …

Photos from the road trip.

A mixture of ‘serious’ and ‘cheesy’ photos from the day.

66/365 – Scrubbed up

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

Normally I would not post something like as it is puffing out ones chest, but the timing could not be better.

I regularly go out on walks with three other photographers, all from my family. All three of them have great ‘eyes’ as we see and I hate it at the end when I think I’ve taken a good shot and I see someone like Mike get disappointed with a shot that ‘didn’t work out as I’d hoped’ that I would give my left ventricular valve to have been able to see, let alone shoot.

Even on the road trip yesterday I was getting very VERY frustrated over the images I was taking as I’d always wanted to shoot in a winery and now that I was there, I was getting nothing.

Even today, I have been stumbling with my self portrait and was feeling quite down about it. Some days I know exactly what to shoot and some days I have no flipping clue and days like today I know what to shoot but it just doesn’t work. They are the worst days.

So, to get back on the point … As I was going through a ridiculous backlog of photos today trying to free some space up on my hard drive I was listening to the latest episode of the Shutters Inc podcast. I was nodding my head in agreement when the host was saying that there was some amazing photographs in the shutters inc flickr group and was waiting to hear Shelton reel of names such as Landon, Baxley and Bob Fischer, some of the most amazing shooters I have seen on the group. He had just finished a diatribe on having the ability to make a great photograph out of something unremarkable.

Imagine my surprise when I heard this??? (I thought I would transcribe rather than get you to download and fast forward to 22.55 sec) . Shelton is the pro photographer and Bruce is the host.

Shelton: “I’m looking at the flickr site right and and there are some great images right here. I can see a picture from … is that you Richard? (At this point my head goes up and I start paying attention) RXAphotos?”

Bruce: “That’s him”

Shelton: “Richard, you’ve taken a picture of a man’s shirt and tie.” (see featured photo above).

Bruce: “That’s him, that’s himself, that’s his self portrait for the day.” Note: The photo is here.

Shelton: “Is it? That is fantastic! It relies on shape, form, colour, texture, composition and it is just fantastic. And it’s just a shirt and a tie!

It’s just fantastic, I love it. Richard you’ve done it again, I’m just opening the picture up as we speak. This is great folks you really need to join this flickr site. You’ve taken a picture of a can of some alcoholic beverage and you’ve said ‘It’s just a recent walk through Fitzroy’ and look you’ve seen it, and you’ve translated it and it’s fantastic. And that’s what the ‘art of seeing’ is and Richard’s nailed it here along with many of our listeners is.”

Here’s hoping Mike never joins the group.

Sorry to make you sit through that but hearing that makes me want to grab the camera again and try for a better SP for the day.

12.00 already.

I just looked at my watch and noticed it was 12.00. Midday? Already??

It’s not as I have been sitting on my butt doing nothing here, but … 12.00???

I’ve had a few goes at the self portrait for the day but nothing has grabbed me yet. Got some things going through my mind as well which I need to nail down and address. It’s going to be one of those days I guess.

12.11 and I’m rambling.

Montalto Winery

Originally uploaded by RXAphotos

After a lazy morning L and I hopped in the mighty Mazda 2 and headed towards the Mornington Peninsula for a day trip in the sun.

The first stop was JB-Hifi in Frankston to stock up on cheesy 70′s & 80′s CD’s. Songs that we belted out at ridiculous throat threshing volumes in two part harmony with the windows down, feet on the dash and cool beverages in hand. We then drove down to Arthur’s Seat to take a couple of panoramas for L to paint at a later stage.

We then headed Montalto Winery (L’s favourite), where we had a delicious lunch followed by a lovely walk through the vineyard to look at the many sculptures and I was quite restrained with the camera. After some tasting L bought half the winery and we headed off with me (the sober one) at the wheel. Box Stallion was the next winery where we had show of repetitious wine descriptions by a young dude. L used her ‘phone a friend’ card and ended up ordering half the winery for them.

Laden down with wine and giggling hysterically at the wine descriptions we headed to Mornington, making up our own such as ‘the gentle aroma of horse testicles strike the palette with the subtleness of oak to the forehead leaving a slightly nutty flavour’.

Next stop was L’s sister (also a pom, but I didn’t hold that against her) for a quick high tea.

Heading home finally, L snoozed whilst I wrestled with Sunday traffic.

A healthy meal of cheese and crackers plus a delectable dessert of strawberry crepes (yes again, I am so spoilt) is being prepared as I type this.

A DVD on the couch rounded off the perfect Sunday.