A Complete Circle...

... of being on a hiatus from the Wondergram!

Salam and Hello :)


It was exactly a year ago that I did my last post.  Funny enough, it was about my attempt to do the #366photoproject, which by right, I would have completed.  Keyword: "would have". I got only as far as the end of February! Haha... so much for 366 days! But that's alright, I'm not kicking myself about it, as it was just a fun project and there was no rules.  Maybe that could be the reason, there was no rules at all.  I found some IG friends who did the similar photo-a-day project following #fatmumslim's IG monthly photo list, which came out to be pretty neat!  Chantelle from FatMumSlim (yes, you read it right, Fat-Mum-Slim and not Fat-Muslim, hehe) made a list of photos to be taken daily as a simple guide for those wanting to do the project.  I decided to join the fun again, this time aiming to go beyond February (haha) and who knows, complete the whole year :)  As if tak cukup-cukup challenge, I'm also doing the #stickygramaday , again, just for the fun of it, while I'm in the mood and on a roll here! Woot! Over sikit starting new year takpe lah kan...

As the quote goes:

Bricks in Huanglongxi, Sichuan Province, China. May 2012.

A simple quote that I found in my 2012 organizer, yet strong enough to motivate me to start over (and this also goes back to running as I've been very and I mean verrrrryyyyy lazy in that department for the past 2 months).

I haven't planned what to blog, but the mood to blog has definitely come back.  Instagram seems to have taken over the world by the clicks and it has become THE portal to do visual microblogs (even took me away from Tumblring).  But it's fun.  Whatever suits to release a bit of the daily work day routines (and stress) right?

Well, in good spirits of re-starting for the new year, and hopefully not overthinking about writing and blogging, here are some pics from my Instagram.  The photos for the challenges are there in between the other snapshots... but it's always nice to see the week goes by in thumbnails :)

til then, have a wonderful tomorrow ;)
kayla

366 Photo Project - Week #1

Happy 2012 :) For this year's "collection" project, I've decided to get on board with the daily photo project for a year.  For the past years, I have noticed others that have been doing this sort of project.  Some call them 365 Photo Project, Project 365, 365 Days and so forth.  Just right before the new year, while I was browsing my Google Reader, I came across an post about The 365 Photo Project by iheartfaces.  Excited and inspired, I started with my first shot the next day on 1 January 2012.  I only realised that we have 366 days this year when a friend pointed it out to me after my first upload (a reason why the first photo is tagged #365photoproject).

For my #366photoproject, I don't have any specific theme set for the daily photos, other than to retain the size of the photos to be all in a square shape, with a caption, day number and the date (gotta have at least one form of consistency in a collection), and to just shoot anything that captures my eyes.  Most of my photos up to this first week were taken using iPhone3GS, and they are uploaded daily on tumblr and Instagram.  Several friends on twitter and facebook have also joined in, so this is going to be fun :)

Here is Week 1 for my 366 Photo Project:

I'm already imagining a poster of 366 thumbnail photos at the end of the year, and then looking at each one trying to recall the story behind them ;)

colours in the backyard

We went to The Colour Lab for the second time earlier this evening.  The first time my husband and I visited the store/cafe, we sat inside.  But since the weather today was just way too gorgeous to be sitting in, we were excited to have coffee with three of our good friends at the backyard garden of the cafe.  The backyard garden is like a small courtyard with lattice walls all around.  They had wooden picnic tables, plants and some splashes of colours here and there, which really made the garden vibrant.  Here are some snapshots of the garden ornaments that caught my attention.

 

I had ice coffee and a good time :)

Photos from iPhone3GS

Tuesday Morning Walk-Jog-Photog

Photos | iPhone3GS, touched up in PS Express

My husband went out for a run this morning, and I decided to join in for a "walk-jog-and-photog" along the way.  The weather was quite nice, cool and breezy... and because it was about 10 am already, the sidewalks were pretty quiet as everyone else were probably at work (except for us because we decided to have a day off from going to work today).  What I truly enjoy about the neighbourhood here is how the sidewalks are well connected and how the houses and apartments vary in their design.  You'd be walking and passing by different facades, different walls and different gates.  There's a mixture of older and newer designs, of houses and of apartments, and the variation makes the neighbourhood an interesting one.  This is probably possible because the plot of lands are smaller, which are owned and developed by different owners and developers - as opposed to one developer owning a large plot of land and building houses that look alike.  The mixed development, rather than a cluster of similar types of building design, seems to give the neighbourhoods a richer character, at least as how I see and experience it.  I am definitely going to miss this neighbourhood... especially when the leaves and petals fall down to the sidewalks.

Gorgeous Friday Evening in Melbourne

This was how Friday evening went.  The weather was just gorgeous. The gentle warm breeze that is not too hot nor was it cold - perfect.  I've learned that when you get a weather like this in Melbourne, you just have to drop everything that you're doing, go outside and immerse yourself in it while it lasts.  As predictably inconsistent the Melbourne weather is, it's expected to shower the whole day today, which is Saturday.  We had a very early dinner at a fish & chippery, and opted to sit outdoors on the sidewalk as the weather was just way too nice to be sitting indoors.  It's amazing how the timber table and bench make eating so much pleasurable, of course, also contributed by colours of the green salad served with the grilled fish and brown rice.  After that, we walked to the park right next to the street.  It has truly been a while since I last sat in a park, and just sat there with my husband.  Trees around you.. the evening sun beaming through the leaves... poetic.  No wonder writers like to go into the woods and be near nature to find solace and peace.  Because for that moment, at least for that moment, there are much bigger things around you.  You get to slow down.  And you get to really breathe.

Photos from iPhone3GS edited via Camera+ and Instagram

of walls and colours

 

Among the things that I enjoy observing in Melbourne are the walls

and the small features that create contrast to the walls.  They create character.

Taken at Lt La Trobe St, Melbourne 

Photos from iPhone3GS edited via Camera+ and Instagram

Scanning Mementos

This is a postcard that I bought at National Museum of Australia in Canberra, from our Melbourne-Canberra-Sydney road trip last year.  It’s an aluminium three-berth caravan, built in 1956.


I recently discovered a new liking for scanning objects, especially small cards.  There's something nice (and somewhat exciting I must say) about having the surface of the cards faced down directly on the scanner and then seeing how they turn out on the scanner.  I find that it is not the same as photographing them (as what I would usually do).

Here are some recent scans. Hello again, good old scanner ;)

“What goes around, comes around” : When we joined Ride-On-Dinner in 2009, they gave each of us this little card to put in between our bike rims.

My sister sent me this postcard when she was visiting Paris earlier this year.  Classic :)

It finally feels like Autumn

Last week, it felt like winter.  It was raining and it was cold.  We all thought winter had come early to Melbourne this year.  Even the highlands have started to get snow.  This week however, it felt more like Autumn.  It wasn't so cold anymore and we got a bit of sun, Alhamdulillah.  So today, we decided to visit a park not far from where we live.  We've walked by the park once before but have never walked through it.  MashaAllah, the trees and the leaves are just beautiful.  It's definitely one of my favourite parks now.

Photos | Olympus PEN E-PL1 in Pin Hole Art Filter
Fawkner Park, Toorak

Autumn Leaves

Diana Mini, using Expired Fuji Sensia 100, Xpro

And then season changes...

Photos were shot from Diana Mini, using Expired Fuji Sensia 100, Xpro

It's true that people say in Melbourne you can get four seasons in one day.  Especially in Spring and Autumn, it can get from warm and sunny to cold and cloudy in few hours.  In the first photo, I was trying to capture the rain, which made the photo somewhat overexposed, or maybe it did rain as heavily as that.  The second photo is State Library of Victoria during one of those sunny yet cool day.  It's definitely one of my favourite kinds of weather: sunny, breezy and cool.  The last photo is somewhere near where we live, and you can already see visible signs of Autumn with the leaves changing colours, while some are already falling to the ground.  Coming from a country that is generally warm or wet all year-round, we can't help but to just be amazed by the changing season here.  But even so, in Malaysia you can notice some trees blooming beautifully during that time of the year when it feels a bit hotter than usual.  Then, you can notice some trees like Tecoma and Lagerstroemia to start flowering, and it looks just gorgeous.  I'm definitely looking forward to capture some of that when I get back.

the city, the clouds and some tulips

These are some of the shots from my first roll using Diana Mini.

It's quite nice to not know how the photos were going to turn out.

But I'm glad that most of them turned out pretty alright :)

Expired Fuji Sensia 100, Xpro, Diana Mini

Tram Card Collection Memento

I previously posted about personalizing your wall piece using things that you might already have, like a collection of something.

Recently a friend who was about to go back to Malaysia jokingly asked us if he could buy our framed tram card collection.  We were flattered by his interest, and thought what a great idea it is to create a farewell memento of Melbourne for him and his wife!

So from the collection of our used tram cards...

We arranged them in a smaller frame...

He was very much delighted to receive the gift! 

And of course, we were also very delighted to share a part of our ordinary collection with friends :)

p/s: we have another collection coming up called "Sugar", stay tuned!

Chasing for Diana

I'm reaching the end of my 36-exp film roll on my Diana Mini. Last Monday, I just had to get these shots before I run out of film. We'll see how they turn out soon.

 

Photo | Luna Park, St. Kilda

Photo | Bathing Boxes, Brighton Beach

Camera | iPhone 3GS on Instagram

Look Up Tuesday & Wednesday

On Tuesday, it was about looking up the buildings around my university.  How often do we tilt our head upwards in a week, right?  A pretty good way to stretch those neck muscle.

 

And today, for Wednesday, I captured some bits of the sky from the tram when the sun was about to set.  It's reddish because of the Bloody Mary camera filter.