karenandersonphotography.com.au

Last October I received this mystery email from Home Beautiful Magazine giving details for a photography competition.  Being an avid reader of all those Homes magazines, I was suprised that I had missed it in the actual magazine.  So of course I had to enter .. given the closing deadline was just over a week away I had to hurry …. the competition called for up to 3 images that portrayed the Australian Home/Lifestyle.  As usual many thoughts run through my head, but pulling them off is always the hard thing….. I thought cricket in the cul-de-sac with the garbage bin as stumps was a good idea but that never came off  … lol … So for the first I wanted to portray Australians current love of white interiors so I dragged in a friend with a new white kitchen and we ghosted her walking through her kitchen … the result I loved ! ….

The second was our desire for the holiday home … in hindsight I don’t really like this one and probably shouldn’t have entered it ..

The third was the one that was selected … This one is a huge part of our life…the swimming pool.  The kids are in the pool everyday, assuming the weather is good, so I had to give it a go.  Charlotte was the only volunteer and we were lucky with the weather, because it had been cold and definitely not pool weather.   However this day, it had been 34 c and she had just walked home from school, so she was ready for a swim..  Lucky for us The winning entry …

These were the outtakes …….

So the prize for winning the Peoples Choice section !! … I get to spend $1000 dollars at Oz Design Furniture … and also the entries are publish in Home Beautiful Magazine at a future date ! ….

THANK YOU ! to all those voted and had to tick yes to receiving junk mail … I really do appreciate it

Well its Christmas Eve, shopping is done, the presents are wrapped we are all ready for the visit from Santa tonight :)  Today we braved the city and went to visit the infamous christmas tree at the QVB (Queen Victoria Building) the tree starts at Ground level and the star at the top reaches up into the dome 4 floors higher …. its always amazing and beautiful, as is the QVB.  After lunch, the venue unanimously voted by the kids (you can well imagine where we ended up) we headed to David Jones, who always deck out their windows in wonderful christmas themes.  This year it was christmas carols, the kids, Rose especially loved all the moving animals … A trip down to Martin Place and the huge outdoor tree and took a rest in its shade.  Tired and grumpy we headed home on probably the highlight of the day, the train ! ..

Merry Christmas, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday season, see you again in 2010 …

The view from level 1

The beautiful stained glass windows

A gorgeous shop on the top floor, beautiful things !

I thought I would share, what appears to be a common photoshop problem.  I bought in a photo from Lightroom to crop and add a watermark, but for some reason, the hand tool seemed to be stuck on.  I couldn’t select any other tool.  I assumed a restart would fix it but no, so after consulting by good friend google, I came across a website saying that he had had the same problem and the 154 comments below where saying they also had the same problem …… very weird ! … some thought it was a preferences glitch, but any way, someone always has a solution.  So if you have this problem, to fix it .. Edit>preferences>and click on reset all dialog warnings.  All fixed …

So after all that… the photo i bought in to crop and watermark A tiny feather we found around the pool yesterday….

Lucky me, another lunch and photo walk with friends …. taken a little while ago, but with this crazy time of year I have been pretty slow in getting posts up on either blog.  These photos were taken around the Northern Beaches, and lunch was by the water around Church Point.  Not too many flowers out at the moment, but there always something around to photograph.  This day it was the weeds, big tall grasses, and teeny tiny weeds where we had to lie down on the grass to get them

I had lunch with some old friends and some new friends recently .. of course a love of photography had bought us together, and team that together with food we had a fabulous lunch with many camera’s documenting the day… Here are some photos of the lovely food we were lucky enough to enjoy

The recipe for the Strawberry and Blueberry Tart is over at the Food Blog.  You can download the recipe too :)  ….   www.justagirlwholovestocook.blogspot.com

I was lucky enough to attend the Newborn Workshop taught by American Kelley Ryden.  What a fantastic opportunity to see her work and gather some more experience photographing babies .. we had two beautiful girls.  It was good to learn that sometimes it can take a long time to get the babies asleep, but patience will win in the end, I think I have given up too easily in the past :)  So here are some photos from the workshop .. and a special thanks to Liz who made the day after the workshop, so much fun, shopping, eating and laughing our way through the city enjoying the sights and shops of Melbourne.

At the end of June I did some photos for a start up business … I was  found through my blog, which I was excited about.  As I have mentioned previously I have always wanted to do some more food photography, and so I got to photograph Cupcakes … they looked and tasted fabulous …

Here is the link to the website, if you want to see how they look …. not all the photographs on the site are mine ..

http://www.cupcakedreams.com.au/default.html

Now that its winter, my house gets much more sun coming through the front windows.  Coupled with my new white chair purchase from ebay, for a staggering 5$ .. it made a perfect backdrop for my anniversary flowers ….  These 3 photos have some new gorgeous textures on them from Shana Rae of Florabella Textures …

A favourite place of mine in Winter is the southern Highlands … after 3 years in the tropics it was gret to get to Bundanoon for the June long weekend.  It was freezing ! .. we had a great weekend though.  For lunch on Saturday we caught up with friends from Kuala Lumpur who have moved down that way, and then on to Bundanoon for a quiet weekend.  The kids enjoyed the the big tree swing and all that open space the most …. me .. I enjoyed the warmth and sitting by the fire .  So just a few snaps of the weekend ..

I have been sadly neglecting the blog … I have been busy setting up another blog, along the lines of another interest of mine, cooking and food photography … here is the link if you want to check it out …. Its call Just a girl who loves to cook ….

Well we are well into Autumn, my most favourite of seasons, not too hot, not too cold and no hayfever …. these photos were taken this weekend as the kids raked up the leaves of the huge Liquid Amber we have in our front yard …. its the only time I like this tree as its leaves change through the glorious autumn colours …

She had been raking for about a minute .. and said she was tired ...