Getting Lost - April

Today has been a really special one... not only is it ANZAC Day but it is also the first time my granddaughter has taken part in a Dawn Service and parade.  Earlier this year Chloe joined Brownies and I've been taking her to her weekly Brownie meetings.  

We both look forward to our Nana/Chloe time at Brownies and she's carrying on the family tradition of being involved in the Guiding movement.  I was a Brownie and a Guide as was my second sister.  My third sister was a Brownie and my mother was 'Tawny Owl'.  Krystal joined both Guides and Venturers... and now Chloe is the fourth generation from our family to join. 

Yesterday afternoon Chloe and I took our gear down to the Guide hall and set up for our overnight sleepover.  I can tell you now that air pump beds and Nana's sore knee don't really go together... especially when the air slowly leaks out of the bed and by 2am there is little to no air left in the bed... but we stayed over together and that was the main thing for us.

The alarm went off at 4am and Chloe really was a bright little button... all excited for what lay ahead.  By 5.15am we were down at Ohinemutu  for the Dawn Service... followed by McDonalds for breakfast and then the Civic Parade.  

I am very proud of Chloe and looking forward to watching Te Karere later this afternoon to see if I can spot her on TV! There don't appear to be many people in this photo but there was a LARGE crowd there this morning.

Since it is ANZAC Day I decided to focus on the two areas we were at this morning... Ohinemutu Village and the Government Gardens... and I also decided to take all my April Getting Lost photos in black and white.  Krystal came with me to take photos today and she offered up a different perspective on the photos and prompts so here goes:

#1 Camera in manual - head north, in automatic, head south.  I had my camera in manual this morning so we headed north after parking the car and Krystal spotted something she thought would look interesting - especially in black and white.

#2 Stop at the next signposted attraction and take 10 photos.  Definitely not a hard prompt in Rotorua... there's tourist attractions all over the place... and Ohinemutu Village was literally 150m from where we were.  Somehow I managed to cull down 30+ photos to just these 10:

 

#3 Take as many steps as you have battery percentage left and frame your shot.  I had a full battery on my camera... and we both felt a little tired so we used the battery from Krystal's phone which had 32% for this one.

#4 Take a photo upside down (you or the camera). I always like doing this prompt because you get such interesting photos.

#5 Drive until you see water and then stop and take a photo of the reflections.  At this point we headed to the Government Gardens... and we were rewarded by spotting a seagull down by one of the ponds.

#6 Take a photo of a living thing.  We'd seen a few seagulls around and spotted some goldfish in a pond but the water was a bit murky and then we spotted some pūkeko which was serendipitous since I am the leader of Te Roopu Pūkeko at my school. 

#7 Take a photo from the perspective of a flower. I really wanted to capture some of the ANZAC wreaths today and this was the perfect prompt to do exactly that! Yes I did get down on the ground for this photo... but it was so worth it!

#8 Early birds head east, night owls head west.  I've always been an early bird... not usually 4am early!  We headed east on foot and bumped into this... very appropriate given the theme of the day.

#9 Follow a bee and take a photo of it on a flower that it lands on. When you're taking photos in black and white it changes the whole perspective but I'm pretty happy with what I was able to capture.

#10 Stop for a treat (and take a photo of it)... this felt like perfect timing... we were both tired and my feet were aching so we decided to head to one of Krystal's favourite bakeries for a little treat and then head home.  I sampled a sticky date cake and it was delicious!

As always, I wanted a title photo for the month and the entrance way to the Government Gardens worked beautifully:

Thanks for taking the time to stop by my little corner of the internet.  Wishing you all a safe and happy weekend :)

Shelley

Getting Lost - March - Part Two

As promised... I'm back today with the 'After Lunch' photos.  By the time we had lunch I felt like I had all the photos I 'needed' for my monthly challenge so it gave us an opportunity to 'play' with light, aperture, and going into manual mode on the camera. 

Thanks to doing some geocaching in the area I knew about a site that might make for some interesting photos.  It's an old brick arch water tower (according to the geocaching site). 

Two significant structures designed by the company chief engineer James Stewart still survive, both brick arch water towers, one in Tirau and one in Lichfield. The railway tower at Tirau holds a Historic Places Category II rating, and is much more robust than the typical wooden water vat constructed by the government at the time, showing the confidence being exhibited by this company in their long term future.

Carey had never been to the water tower before so she was keen to visit... and we did get some great photos... plus it was a nice place to practice some photography skills.

After looking through my photos I realised that I had several that fitted the photography prompts so here we go:

#1  Use a camera setting you wouldn't normally use for this type of photo. Since I was going fully manual by this point, I could have chosen any of the photos I took so I chose one I really liked.

#2 Take a photo upside down (you or the camera).  I quite like this prompt and it makes for some interesting photos.  I especially liked this photo since it's crisp showing off the bark but much softer further up the tree.

#3 Get macro and portray the season you are in with just a leaf or flower.   The leaves were gorgeous around the trees at the water tower so this was an easy prompt to complete.

 #4 Find a building. Zoom your lens to the widest angle. Move in close to make dramatic angles. I took so many photos of the water tower trying out different angles, different lighting, and different points of view.  It's a pretty interesting place to visit. This photo almost has an old 'gaol' feel to it.

 #5 Leading lines or rule of thirds? Or can you do both? I've done this prompt before and every time I do I get completely different results.  Thanks to the autumn-ish colours this one has a totally different feel.

#6 Put a frame around a landscape using what ever you find around you. For this photo I used one of the water tower arches to frame the landscape.  I was definitely making the most of the lighting as well!

#7 Stop, look behind you and take a shot.   It's strange how sometimes you just don't see what's right in front of you... or in this case behind you... until you stop to notice.  No idea what happened to the rest of the tree but the root ball was actually quite interesting.

#8 Close your eyes, spin, stop and shoot. I'll fess up that I took a few steps forward before I took my shot... but it was well worth it! Such an interesting structure and I love the 'texture' of the peeling paint.

So that's the end of the March prompts but before I go I thought I'd share a couple of the results of the lighting lessons I did with Carey.  In each case there are three photos: darker - normal - lighter.  We played around with aperture and ISO levels but I need a LOT more practice!

Lesson #1  

 

Lesson #2

 

Once we got back to Rotorua we decided to each share our favourite shot with each other... here's mine:

 

And here's Carey's:

 

I've definitely got a bit to learn... and I consider that a good thing :)

Thanks for stopping by
Shelley

Getting Lost - March - Part One

Last weekend I did a little adventuring with one of my girlfriends.  Carey is a passionate photographer and fellow teacher and she was keen to take on the March challenge with me.

We went over to Tīrau which is a very pleasant 40min drive so we didn't have to travel too far... and we found a few little gems when we got there... a park and walkway that we had never visited before as well as a delicious lunch (which we both failed to photograph!)

This month we did the cards differently... we spread them all out on Carey's kitchen bench... read through them all... and then headed off on our adventure.  We decided to take photos of the things that caught our eye... and of course we'd see things and say 'that would be good for xxx prompt'. 

It was very different to how I've done it previously and it did mean that we spent more time really looking at our surroundings.  Carey also managed to teach me how to use my camera a bit more which I really appreciated.  So much nicer learning from someone than reading an instruction manual.

This month I took 199 photos... more than enough to cover some of the prompt cards!  Once I got my photos uploaded onto the computer I realised that I really had two very different sets of photos... before lunch... and after lunch.  Partly because they were taken in two different locations (both within Tirau).. and partly because we had a different focus after lunch.  Today I'm sharing the 'BL' photos... Before Lunch :)

Please note: I had the full pack with me last weekend so some of these prompts have been done in previous months :) 

#1 Take a photo of a living thing. Not long after we started taking photos I had wandered over to a massive oak tree and when I looked up I saw a gorgeous tui.  Thankfully I had a longish lens on my camera and I was able to get a decent photo without disturbing him/her.

#2 Use a camera setting you wouldn't normally use for this type of photo. I really love taking 'non people' photos so I wanted to have a go at making my photos a bit more interesting. Carey showed me how to 'go manual' on my camera and play around with ISO and aperture settings. I've got quite a few 'dud' photos that will make their way to the recycle bin but I LOVE the colours in this photo!

 #3 Follow a bee and take a photo of it on a flower that it lands on.  On Saturday bees seemed to be in short supply... probably too late in the season.  But... there were several moths and butterflies around so I kept on playing around with settings and getting close to my subject... and this is the result.

#4 Drive until you see water and then stop and take a photo of the reflections.  We didn't actually need to drive because further on into the park there was a river.  I took quite a few watery photos... and most of them were average at best... but this one I really like.  Not so much reflections but there's plenty of movement in the water to make it interesting.

 #5 Use camera blur to make something appear different to what your eye can see. I really like being able to focus in on something and blur out the foreground or background so that the subject is the whole focus of the photo... and this time the focus was a spectacular piece of nature!

 

#6 Stop, look behind you and take a shot. Sometimes I get quite focused on what I'm photographing that I don't actually notice things behind me and this was one of those cases.  This prompt reminded me to stop and take a minute to just take in ALL of my surroundings. 

#7 Get macro and portray the season you are in with just a leaf or flower.  I did this prompt in January with sunflowers.  In late March the weather is beginning to change and Autumn is definitely on it's way.  I loved this prompt so much... or rather the subject of my focus and I couldn't narrow it down to just one photo... so you have three!

#8 Close your eyes, spin, stop and shoot. I didn't actually close my eyes since the ground was uneven and the risk of breaking my ankle flashed into my head... but I definitely did get a surprise when I spun around and Carey was right behind me taking photos of the same thing as me! Clearly we both had the same artistic thought!

 

#9 Find a building. Zoom your lens to the widest angle. Move in close to make dramatic angles. I had the perfect subject for this... it's just not quite a building... but it is a 'structure' so I figured I would use my 'artistic license' on this prompt.  When I did prompt #6 I knew I wanted to take some more photos of the bridge and this prompt fitted in perfectly!

#10 Leading lines or rule of thirds? I had previously done this prompt in Taupō so when I saw the bridge during the previous prompt I knew I HAD to do this prompt as well!

By this stage it was pretty much lunch time so we decided to head back to the car and go and get something to eat... and we weren't disappointed. I also managed to get a photo for my title card for March.

So that is the first part of the Getting Lost challenge for March.  I'm super keen to show you the After Lunch photos so hope to see you back again :)

Shelley

The best tasting soil you'll ever eat!

 I was going to call this post Mrs McGregor's Garden but when I shared these cookies at school yesterday the overwhelming comment was... "that's the best tasting soil I've ever eaten!"  Which kind of makes me wonder if my work mates have unusual eating habits LOL

As we all know... Mr McGregor... from Peter Rabbit... is the enemy of Peter Rabbit and his friends, he hates that the three always break into his garden and steal/eat his fruits and vegetables from his farm garden. 

There are a few mentions of Mrs McGregor... mostly the mention of her putting Peter's father... Mr Rabbit... in a pie and eating him.  I prefer to think of her as a lovely woman who decided to collaborate with the rabbits... planting carrots and lettuces for them and they, in turn, not eating her flowers.  

You might be wondering where this is all heading... so best I explain.  You might recall that last month I entered a cookie challenge with Kuki Reka Kani. I'm absolutely thrilled to tell you that I won two awards for my cookies: Technical excellence and Star Baker of the Month :)

When they announced the March prompt I was definitely keen to give it another go!

As you might have guessed 'Veggie Patch' was what caught my eye! I tend to be a bit of a ponderer... I like to think about ideas, put things together in my own mind... and then work out what I'm going to do.  Most of the time I've already 'finished' my design before I actually start to bake... and this one kind of went that way.  

I started off by reading through the creative ideas provided with the challenge... and that helped a LOT

 So without any more procrastinating... here's what I came up with:

 

I ended up doing eight cookies that are the 'same but different' and I'll share them at the end of the post.  So if you don't want to see the 'how to' then feel free to skip ahead.

 

My first decision was what flavour of cookie to make... and after a bit of Googling I found a recipe for Pumpkin Spice cookies.  There's no actual pumpkin in the recipe but it incorporates the spices used to make pumpkin pie.

 

I also had to decide which cutter to use and I chose Pikorua (double twist)... mostly because when I lay it on it's side it felt the most 'garden like'. 

 

I have found that the secret to using these cutters is LOTS of flour sprinkled on the dough before cutting... it helps the cutter release from the dough... and then I just gently brush off the excess flour before baking.

 

Once I had all the cookies on the tray I popped them in the fridge for about 20 minutes... definitely helps them to not spread out while baking.

Ready for the oven

 

While the cookies were baking the kitchen smelt like a combination of ANZAC cookies, hot cross buns... and warm apple crumble.  It was a wonderful combo and I'll definitely use the recipe again. 

Then it was time to move on to all the decorations.  I had a wonderful fondant mould to make all the little garden supplies... gumboots.. watering can... pots... fork and trowel.  I also had a different mould that made little carrots... so happy with how they all turned out.  The little flowers were some I bought at the supermarket... super cute and perfectly sized for what I needed.

 

 

Then I needed some 'soil'.  YouTube came to my rescue and I found a couple of tutorials and then just adapted what suited me.  I ended up using Oreo cookies with chocolate filling and some Arnott's Gaiety biscuits.  I've never had those before but they are DELICIOUS!  The recipes I looked at also combined chocolate chips but in the end I didn't use them for the soil.

Basically I put some of each cookie into a plastic bag and bashed the heck out of them with my rolling pin... ever so carefully of course!  The resulting soil looked more like 'rubble' so I quickly pulsed them in my handy dandy mini processor and got EXACTLY what I was hoping for!

Left is 'rubble'... right is 'soil'

While I'd been YouTube(ing) I'd come across some tutorials for making 'moss'.  I didn't need moss but I thought it looked a bit like fancy lettuce... which of course the bunnies would LOVE.

 

I whisked up my mixture and added some bright green colour.  I actually had to do my mixture twice because the first time I added Colour Mill oil colours without even thinking and all my lovely thick airy batter turned into very thin soupy mess.  I MUST remember that oil and fluffy egg whites do NOT go together! 

 

I put 1/3 in a cup... added a different green and did 1/3 in another cup... and then a bit more colour and put the rest in another cup.  Cooked it in the microwave and then turned them upside down to 'set'.  The science behind the upside down part is that the sugar sets creating lovely big air pockets and if you left it up the right way you would get flat little pancakes. 

 The lightest colour turned out to be EXACTLY what I was looking for!

 

The final part was to use the cast aside chocolate chips... I say that like I would EVER cast aside chocolate LOL  I made some chocolate ganache for everything to stick to... plus it was the right colour and texture for what I wanted. 

I got everything assembled and ready to create!

 

Then I just let myself go... I really didn't think about it too much.  I did make sure that I spread out all my fondant decorations so there wasn't one cookie with too much and others with nothing... but apart from that I just created for fun.

 

Here's my finished cookies:

Big pot and lettuce

Trowel and Fork

Gumboots

Watering can

Carrots and lettuce

More carrots and lettuce

Small pot and flower

Lettuce and flowers

The completed cookies went to school on Monday... and none of them made it past 9am!

So what did I learn during this challenge?

• Making 'moss' is super fun... pink and purple moss would make wonderful coral for an underwater theme!
• Cookie soil looks great as rubble and as soil... and it would be perfect for adding to the top of Easter cookies and cupcakes
• Pumpkin spice cookies are really delicious!
• Giving myself time to create and just 'play' is really fun

So there you have it... another month in 2025 almost over and another challenge completed. 

Thanks for stopping by my little corner of the universe :)
Shelley