marc.vic.max.elliot

The view out of our window has changed – no more London and loads more New Zealand!

Yep that’s right – we’re back in the homeland (for the moment anyway) and we’re loving it! Even more to the point the grandparents are loving it

The trip over here was long (36 hours non-stop door to door) but uneventful. Max was an angel for the first 12 hour flight, slightly less angelic for the second 12 hour flight and a bit of a bugger on the last one hour leg……….

Anyway we’re here now and although Max’s rhythms are out by twelve hours (sleeping during the day and awake it night – damn those time zones!!) we’re very happy to back in the bosom of our families

I hope you are all well – this is the first time that I’ve been online in a week so I haven’t had time to catch up on my online world. Maybe soon

Mucho big, life changing stuff happening at the mo so there’ll be no updates for a few days (probably more like a week)

Hope y’all are keeping well.

Continue reading »

What a week………. just don’t ask.

OK – so ask, but I don’t want to put it on here so email me if you’re curious.

? Max had his six week check today and was found to be in tip-top condition. He’s also put on just over a pound in the last week and now tips the scales at a hearty 12 pounds 5 ounces.

? TeamNZ lost the fourth race of the America’s cup after dismasting. Bloody hell – they’ve had years of testing in the Hauraki Gulf and lose two races with equipment failure due to the conditions. It now looks like the cup will be going to Europe (Switzerland) for the first time in it’s 152 year history.

? Not much more news really……………..

I really have the urge to redesign this weblog! I want something much cleaner and lighter looking and also want to go with a single column design with separate pages for searching and archives. All of these ideas are going around in my head but I just can’t find the time to put them into practise 🙁

Oh well

I just had the best evening! I got home early and Vic was feeding Max. At six I sent her to bed and Max lay in my arms sleeping for two hours I should have put him to bed but he hadn’t slept all day and Vic was frazzled so I thought that I could keep a better eye on him if he was with me. After Vic got up I put him into bed and he’s slept for another 90 minutes!

Such a cool way to spend two hours, gazing down at my son……..

Medium Format no longer has a place in my house 🙁 I bought my Bronica system about a year ago as a “learning system” I wanted a system that would force me to slow down and think about what I was doing when taking a photograph and as my ETRSi was completely manual and had no integrated metering it really did the trick. I went from 100 shots an hour on my digital system to as little as 6 per hour! Handheld metering was great fun and made me look at the whole process of taking a photograph in a different way – spot vs reflected vs incident – what to do

After a while though I came to two conclusions 1) It had served it’s learning purpose and 2) whilst a 6×45 negative was nice it wasn’t a big enough a step away from 35mm for me. If I get back into a larger than 35mm format in the future I think it’ll be 6×7, 6×9 or even large format 5×4. I want to blown away when looking at a velvia trannie on a light-box and 6×45 just wasn’t doing it……..

So what’s happened to the Bronnie? it’s been traded in on my first Canon “L” series lens, a 70-200mm F4 and a 1.4x Teleconverter. I pick them up on Saturday and might even get some time to do some test shots over the weekend I had a couple of rolls of film leftover and have sent them to Lor to use in her Holga Have fun Lor!

Strange trip to work this morning….. I saw the aftermath of two accidents involving motorcycles and the remnants of an accident at a major intersection involving a car and half the traffic lights in the area.

The motorcyclists were both OK (I saw them talking to the paramedics) and about 10 police were controlling the traffic using the affected intersection so the net effect of my trip was minimal.  This was just as well as I was 30 minutes late leaving home today. Vic had called me through at 5 this morning very distressed that Max had only fed for 10 minutes and was being all grumbly. Maybe she thought that the fact that he wouldn’t feed was some sort of slight on her/us. The way that I figured it was that if he didn’t want to feed then there was not a lot we could do so I sent Vic off to bed. After changing Max and walking around with him for half an hour he seemed sleepy enough to put to bed so I did and we got 90 minutes sleep before he woke up again (after turning my alarm off – hee hee) and when I left home he was feeding well.

Funny things babies You just get the into what you think is a routine and they throw you a curve ball