Saturday, July 08, 2006

Time:Friendship Book

Time, do we ever have enough of it? I am always wanitng more time. More to do the things I like doing but I can also waste a lot of it! I decided to explore what I do with time as an entry in my friendship book exchange. The following pages are the result. I created a fold out section in which to write about what I did with my time.The front image is my sewing machine and in the background my scrapbooking work space. I learnt to sew at an early age and my sewing machine has always been set up ready to use. It is a place I love to spend time, particulary making quilts. My creative place tends to be a bit of a mess, sigh, and I often think , if I had more time perhaps I could keep it tidy.My problem is I tend to be creating several things at once, sewing, scrapbooking, or photographying.
The fold out flap, when fully pulled, out reveals one of my recent photographs, a quiet image of autumn leaves , and my work bench with my design board covered in various pieces and the clutter of several projects over my working space.
Time. I can never have enough of it and with all the things I love to do, time will never be boring.

Friday, July 07, 2006

The Dreaming 2006

The Dancestry Circle provided heaps of entertainment in the way of dance performances from dance groups around Australia, Mornington Island, Solomon Island and Jamaica. One of the highlights for me was to see the Snuff Puppets. These oversized human puppets delighted children and adults alike. The tale of the Nyet Nyet's , large woman figures, had every one intrigued. The Snuff puppets explore the stories of bunyips and like creatures from all over the country.




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The Closing Ceremony:

The final event of the Dreaming was the Closing Ceremony. The stage set across the other side of a small lake in the center of the site. The sloping bank giving everyone a perfect view. The light levels were low and the dancers too far away to make flash a viable options. With my camera loaded with 400 Asa film , 300mm zoom lens, and tripod set up I began taking pictures wondering how they would turn out with the long exposures times. I was happy with the results when my films were returned from being developed.I felt the movement of the dancers during the long exposure added to the sense of mystery of the dance performances.

Towards the end of the ceremony they lit several flares.The bright orange flames provided extra light but the film picked up the light as a bright red hue and there was a loss of detail in the images. I scanned a negative and decided to see how it would look with the colour removed. The resultant black and white image revealed lots more detail than could be seen in the coloured images. I scanned the rest of the closing ceremony images and ended up with some useful pictures.