little red planet

This T-Shirt was designed/inspired by a drawing from my 4 year old, Willow. Click the design for shirt style and color options.

Today my daughter Willow was jumping on the trampoline. She quietly slipped her water bottle in and began jumping throwing water everywhere. I snapped a few picts before taking her in from the cold and changing her water clothes!

Melbourne (Upwey) bushfire aftermath … 2 months afterwards.

Hold fast to dreams for if dreams die, life is a broken winged bird that cannot fly. Langston Hughes

Late afternoon in the Dandenong Ranges
A steel string guitar
Cowboy paradise

self portrait, effects applied using the GIMP with FX-Foundary plugins

weekend snapshot entry

Willow and I went to a local park on Sunday and met up with a Kanga family. This is the Mom of an older Joey.  I think she was expecting a hand out from us cause she began hopping straight for us and veered to the side once she realised we were san goodies. I took this photo as she was approaching Willow.

I’ve had an account at DeviantArt.com for a couple of years now and have not used it much in the past 12 months. I started digging around there this week and notied they have made some nice upgrades. I really like this embedded slideshow. Click the ‘expand’ icon along the bottom of the show (as you move your mouse over it) and you’ll see a very classy slideshow of my featured gallery. Let me know what you think. Also, if you have a DA account, touch base with me there.

I decided that it had been far too long since I had pulled out the ol’ camera and took some shots. I walked around this morning with my daughter and took a few experimentals. While editing them on my favorite editing software, the GIMP, I accidentally choose the Threshold option. This gives a very stark black and white image. I was impressed with how the stripes on the shirt contrasted the other elements in the composition.

I decided to use the threshold edit and layer it with an alpha mask and a circular gradiant. This pulled in color and gave me a great color and texture contrast. If all this sounds like goobledy gook and you wouldn’t know your GIMP from a lame Pimp, then check out the GMIP tutorials located on the site here. The second part of this tutorial explains the threshold tool and how to use it.

We were called back home because of a serious bushfire threat. All the way home on the drive from the city, a large smoke plume was visible. Luckily the plume indicated the fire was headed south, the opposite direction from our home.

At last, we made it home and sat on the ridge watching the fire burn the tranquil valley below. As we watched in horror, news swept through the small crowd gathered with us on the ridge. A change was rapidly approaching and the wind would soon change direction.

We waited and watched. Suddenly, it happened. The wind swung around from the south bringing swift cool Antarctic gusts.  We watched as the fire changed direction and began heading towards us. It surrounded a home on the other side of the valley. Water bombing helicopters swooped in. The Southerly wind change swung the massive smoke plume around and into our faces. What was once clearly visible became obscure.

We could hear a number of massive helicopters overhead and in the valley below but could not see their efforts or targets. Sirens wailed in the distance.

A light fall of soot and ash started to descend like a snowstorm from hell. We dispersed and patrolled our properties, looking for sign of ember attack, hoses at the ready.

Under a soot and ash choked  sky we wait. A eerie silence has fallen. No longer able to see the approaching firestorm front.  We must decide now, do we stay and fight or do we leave our properties in the hands of fate and the sheer determination and effort of volunteer fire fighters? Stay or go?