Tails’ Blography

So the shoot was today and it was a gorgeous day for it! Too hot in fact, and we all just about melted into a puddle of mush…luckily we managed to get some awesome shots before that happened!

Eskii was awesome, and took the time to explain this whole emo/indie culture of which I’m so unfamiliar with. I was unsure at first, as was he about the modelling, but by working together we soon got the hang of it and we have the photos to prove it!

There were one or two shots I requested for my own creative benefit, like the hand shots (you’ll know which ones when you see ‘em) and there was one where there is a spiderweb in the shot, but its hard to tell so I didnt upload it.

Please do comment since, well, this is a blography after all Good and bad comments, I want to hear what you think!

Shhh I’m hunting emos! Yup, coming this Sunday I’ll be doing a photoshoot with my very first emo/goth/indie guy! And he’s Asian to boot! Weeee!

I’m looking very forward to this shoot, because I have a soft spot for emo’s (especially hot ones!) and I’ve been itching to do a photoshoot for a while now. This opportunity presented itself to me two weeks ago, and finally the time is almost here!

I’ll be shooting a friend of mine who goes by the alias Eskimo. He needs some shots done and I’ve been wanting to do a photoshoot with a male for a while now so this is perfect! It’s gonna be fun, challenging, a little bit outrageous, and plain awesome! He’s wicked artistic so he had a few great ideas to incorporate it into the shoot, so I’m excited to play! And I have the 24-70mm 2.8 L beast again! Woop woop!

I’m nervous though, because guy photography is not my forte. I’m used to photographing women. I feel there’s always more to look at with a woman, and more choice when it comes to poses…I always feel cheesy posing guys, but I’m throwing caution to the wind with Ekii. We arranged for him to come over this afternoon with some outfits so we could work out a plan (he’s a clothing designer and stylest too!), and he made me feel very comfortable with the whole idea of photographing an emo/goth/indie (okay, he was kinda getting dressed in my lounge which helped hehe…rowr!).

I only hope I can do him justice!

Today we’re offically through into our third week of NaNoWriMo! I’m at 24,168 words and going strong! We met at the River Club for our halfway party, with EvilBelgian, his dad, Magependragon, myself and my bf having breakfast there beforehand.

The breakfast deal is well worth it, at R70, for a self-helping of cold breakfast (cereals, croissants, danishes, etc), and hot serving of eggs, bacon, sauteed potatoes, friend onion rings, fried tomatoes, and sausages. The deal also included a bucket of 50 balls (hiring of a club is R10) which you could then knock off the driving range or you could rather choose to play a 9 hole game instead of the bucket. I had fun taking food pics, but I forgot to take a photo of our hot breakfast…lesigh.

Fruit salad!

Lots of pastries

The buffet itself

The bf whacking it to the moon!

The Hot Food buffet

After eating our fill and putting (in my case) our balls off the second floor of the driving range, we proceeded with the NaNo Half Way Party. Loot in the form of adorable Dinosaur Erasers, which I dubbed Wrimo’Rasers, noise making balloon blowers (gosh these things were noisy!), and other cool things (I got a replacement feather for my one that blew away at the kick off party haha).

After we ate, laughed, drank, laughed some more (that creepy murder music was eery!) we eventually parted ways, with promises to continue on with our novel plight with due diligence.

And for the first time in ages, I lugged my camera with to document the event

Everyone chatting…

An authentic NaNo Sticker

My Wrimo’Raser: Gearz

My “Snack Basket” (there are chips under those spring rolls haha)

Gearz making a break for it!

My best friend, bf, and I went out to the West Coast National Park to see the flowers in bloom. Apparently they’re supposed to be quite something. I say “apparently” because we didnt really see that many flowers hehe.

We packed a picnic basket, packed our cameras (bf used my Sony and 300mm lens), and off we went. We drove all the way there, paid our R33 each to enter the park (thanks, Viia!), drove about 8km only to realise we were low on fuel and probably wouldnt make it around the park and home again. Sigh. So we loaded up Garmin on my cell, shook it like a Magic 8 Ball and asked it where the closest petrol station was. It pointed us in the direction of Yzerfontein, 12km away. Off we went, refilled, and returned anew and with much gusto!

The first critter we came across was a tortoise crossing the road (see image). Of course Viia and I bounded out the car, cameras at the ready, knelt down on either side of the little guy…and grimaced in pain! That gravel was demonic on our knees! Fearing the pain if we moved, we stayed put and made do with the shots we could get (I got the tortoises attention…hehe must have been the gigantic L lens hehe) and eventually he grew bored and wandered off while we painfully got to our feet and returned to the car.

We continued on and saw some Ostrich and ostrich behbehs! They were so cute, but alas, too hidden in the long grass to get a decent photo of. Moving a little further, we thought we saw a flower, but were mistaken, so we continued on, still feeling hopeful.

We came to a beach spot where people were milling about and we got out to take some shots. It was fairly windy there, so we didnt linger, and moved off to find the next stop, which promised to be a picnic spot. When we arrived there, people were setting up their braais in the designated areas (being National Braai Day ‘n all for us) so we scrambled amongst the rocks looking for a sheltered spot, which we found and promptly set up our stuff and had lunch. We milled there for an hour or so, marvelling at the weather that was overcast, yet very warm. If it hadnt been cloudy, we would have melted!

After lunch, making sure to pack up everything and not litter, we stood around taking some more pics and then moved off to continue through the park. We eventually arrived at a summit where we took some shots of (woah!) flowers! and the scenery and each other. We were naughty, though, getting out of the car despite the “Please Remain In Your Vehicle” sign hehe.

Continuing on, the clouds got darker and more threatening, but by some chance of luck, a patch of cloud broke and the sun shone down onto the field of herd animals we were approaching. They were quite close to us, and my 300mm lens worked perfectly, so we stopped and got some shots of the behbeh buck and ostrich. We moved on a little way and found a small area of purple flowers, so of course we bounded out the car yet again and took some shots (we just had to get flower photos before leaving haha). Just as we were about to leave, we stopped off at the last lookout point, and took some shots. This is when it started raining hehe so we got back in the car and made our way home.

The day was super relaxing, and we ended up at Viia’s to have some tea and snuggle her rats. Unfortunately by that time Michael was plagued with a headache, so I ended up driving us home in his car hehe. I always get nervous driving his car…I keep forgetting he has a boot (trunk) since my car is a hatchback…

Maybe next time we’ll see those flowers…

Me with the 24-70mm L beauty

Michael and the Sony

Awesome view from our picnic spot

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

Flowers, flowers and more flowers

A field of flowers!

The last little bit of sunshine before the clouds took over for good

Today is Sunday and, of course, I’m recuperating from another OC LAN weekend (link best viewed in Firefox). This LAN was a fairly small one (probably around 200 +-450 people over the whole weekend), as I believe there are quite a few religious holidays, as well as the LAN being rather soon to the previous one.

One thing that did happen that was out of the ordinary was the Drug Bust. Yup, someone, or three, were arrested for drug possession (R500-R600 worth of weed) and some other drug paraphernalia. Now I wondered if I’d be moaned at for blogging about it, but quite frankly, I think people should know. At least it shows there is little to no tolerance of drugs, which makes the event a safer environment…’cos let’s face it, a lot of kiddies attend OC. And they should be kept safe. I dont think a drug bust is bad publicity, after all, where there are kids, there will be drugs. It would be silly to expect otherwise, however sad that sounds. They should know it’s just not tolerated.

Anyway, so a few kids (read: three) were arrested, and the LAN continued unintterupted. I was a bit miffed about the girls’ bathroom being moved so far away (it’s now literally all the way across the dome from where I sit, up some stairs, through a winding passage and voila. I dont know, maybe I’m the only one who gets so miffed about it, but yeah, walking through that passageway alone really makes me feel unsafe. I dont think anyone would hear if I screamed if I were attacked. It just gives me the shivers…

So, of course, as I said in my last post, I was getting a Canon 24-70mm 2.8 L lens to play with at the LAN. And oh boy, I’m IN LOVE with this lens. Aside from the speed and quietness of the focussing, no postprocessing sharpening needed on the photos I took at all! They’re already tack sharp (when my shakey hands dont ruin it haha). Gosh, I love this lens! Though I do wish it had image stablization on it. Then it would be perfect! I pushed my camera a bit this LAN by pumping the ISO to 1250 for most of the indoor photos. The grain is noticable, but I dont think it necessarily ruins the photos. In some cases it gives it more feeling. Well, of course thats just my opinion. I could be biased *wink*.

So, without further delay: photos!

Just after we finished setting up

Tis like a ‘bull’ in a china…err OC LAN

Muh Windows logon!

A sleepy lanner

A random view of the LAN

Sweets!

A photo of me taken by my bestest friend

A very sleepy lanner who unwittingly provided some entertainment for us photographers…hope he was ok though…

An artistic shot whilst outside on a “cigerette break” with friends

A view over the LAN

mmmm coffee