Serendipity

Serendipity has always been one of my favorite words.
Now I have combined that with one of my favourite things - photography.
Thanks to the inspiration and advice from a group of special fellow-amatuer photographer friends, the "Serendipity Photography" Facebook page is now up and running.
In the 'long description' they ask you to give on set up, I wrote...

It is said that quality photos are made, rather than simply taken. I definitely believe this. However I personally find joy in that special moment that presents itself, and take great pleasure in capturing that serendipitous moment in a photograph. 
I am always scanning the environment around me for those informal moments that may never present themselves again. My camera is almost always with me.
I love shooting people, and enjoy building a relationship with my subjects to enable the real person to be seen through the lens. I enjoy creating simple images that tell a story. BUT... I look out for that serendipitous moment again in these shoots, and it's often the photos that cannot be recreated, that tend to be my personal favourites.
Whilst 'finding' the photos is a favourite aspect of photography for me, I also love learning more about the technical side of things, and am increasing my post-processing skills all the time as well.
Making photos makes me happy; equally, sharing them with those who are invested in them, and seeing their reactions, gives me just as much pleasure!


Please visit my page and 'like' it :)

Ascertaining 'worth'

Well it has sure been a long while between posts - a two week break overseas and the obligatory recovery time will do that for you, but will also provide topic fodder for a few posts to come. Unlike my brother, (link to his travel blog here) who is currently on a 7 week excursion in Europe with his wife, I did not blog whilst I was away - I only had my cell phone and not a lot of data or downtime. Retrospective blogging therefore means that posts will not be chronological in terms of the experiences we had. To give context to the posts I will briefly define the 'we' as being myself and my new best friend Shane lol. A man from my past who has now become my future *collective sigh*.
It was a brilliant, spontaneous holiday, and we packed A LOT into the brief time we had. This meant we did not necessarily do the standard tourist things, but in Venice, we did.

A couple in love in Venice can't NOT go on a gondola ride, can they? A quiet, romantic glide through the back canals of this amazingly unique city? We had already meandered the streets by foot as we made our way randomly from the train station to the Piazza San Marco in the morning, and I had loved the authenticity we found away from the tourist mayhem of the Rialto Bridge area and St Marks Square. The gondola ride was much like that, but with the perspective of being on the canals. Our gondolier offered us the occasional snippet of commentary, but I don't think we were particularly interested; after all the walking we'd done I think we were both glad of the chance to sit down and relax!

So we can tick "Gondola Ride through Venice" off our 'list'; although I had ridden a gondola on my last visit to Venice some 15 years ago, it was with a bunch of fellow Contiki tourists, not with my 'fellow'. But an expensive tick it was. NZD $120 was the 'city price' for this supposedly 40 minute ride; that's some hourly rate! Was it worth it? Of course it was. What price do you place on experience and memories, huh? (Even if it's just to recall how ridiculously overpriced it was lol)

Clip of the Year

Maybe it's because I am in a romantic frame of mind - not quite to this extent however - that this clip which turned up on my FB page has struck such a chord with me. What an amazing group of people to do this for this woman (Amy) and her beau... I have had to watch it several times because there's so much you miss the first time. I especially like watching the bride-to-be's reactions in the top LH corner... What a lucky lady!

Click on the top pic to link through. So worth it!