it isn’t.

Another year has been. Mother’s Day is {bittersweet} for me.

Really, I do love it. I have 3 children who love me and love to shower me with affection for the WHOLE day. Sometimes {if I’m really lucky} they might not even argue for the whole. day. Can you believe that?

Showered with breakfast and gifts especially chosen – really it is almost better than a birthday!

But when I really think about Mother’s Day, I get sad. Sad that another year has gone by without my mum. It’s been nearly 12 years now and you know what? It doesn’t get any easier – it just gets different.

I look at my children and see what I would love to share with mum. She would have loved to know them as they are now. They were only young when she left. Well, Bronte was born 17 days after mum passed away – so it is even sadder that they never met.

Mum would have been so happy and proud to know my children. I know I am. {when the arguing stops that is!}

Thank you my 3 gorgeous off-spring (and Stan my husband) for a super delightful day.

xxx

So, here’s wishing that everyone reading this had a lovely, love-filled day!

Photo is of Stan and Bronte – Father and Daughter – on my special day. Love this because it is them.

And here are some photos of my 3 today – not technically perfect by any means but favourites because they show them as they are….

Walking around my neighbourhood the other day, I found these two rocking horses on the nature strip as it is Hard Rubbish Collection time. These two, having served their purpose for who knows how long, were abandoned on the side of the road. I saw a photo opportunity!

So Dobbin and Dobbin came home to our place. They sat outside on our patio for a few weeks. Then, late yesterday afternoon – the light was beautiful!

I quickly organised my oldest and youngest children to carry them over the road to ‘our’ park and started to take photos.

While snapping away, a little boy, aged about 4, came over and just hopped on Wooden Dobbin. How cute is that? See the photo down below.

Then, of course, Sam and Bronte got in the act – now that is cute right there. Big kids on little rocking horses. Sad in a way too as it shows just how grown they are now. So, here are my photographic offerings. Hope you enjoy!

When I called to Bronte to bring Dobbin over she asked why are you calling them Dobbin? I told her that Dobbin is a common name for horses but then I wondered “why” and “is it really?”. So I looked it up….

Anyway, so here are Dobbin and Dobbin. Lovely finds I think and I am sure they bought a lot of pleasure in their time.

This is Wooden Dobbin and little boy.

This is my youngest, Bronte. I love this photo! Pity she is wearing her school uniform though. Look how big she is on Dobbin and doesn’t it look like they have been life-long friends? When in reality they have known each other just a few days.

Finally, here is my 15 year old Sam on Wooden Dobbin and Bronte on Fabric Dobbin. Cute shots huh?

Ahhhh sunflare. My one true photographic love. When I saw this weeks challenge I just KNEW that I had to enter. I immediately thought of this photo of my eldest boy child, Samuel. He is 15 and not my normal victim (that would be my 14year old boy child, Zachary) so it is nice that this one let me take photos AND he enjoyed it.

I have quite a few from this ‘shoot’ to choose from but I think this is my favourite. You can see his gorgeous eye(s) and I love the way the light acts as a halo around him but most of all I love HIM. He is a nice person. A little weird (I wonder where he gets THAT from!!!) but oh so nice.

Oh. Can you spot the heart shaped sunflare on his face! I just spotted it now!! Yay me! lol (of course I meant it!!!!!)

So, this is my entry for the Sun Flare challenge this week over at I Heart Faces please go and take a look at all the gorgeous flare from around the world…it is divine!

and I really really like the way it turned out.

Do you think it works?? Would love you to let me know.

k8 xxx

When will it be here??

Which direction will it come from?

I wish...I wish...I wish...

Feels like we've been waiting forever...

Can you see it???

Quick! Run! It's coming!

Time...

and time....

again...

I fall asleep....waiting....waiting

I am delighted with it. My brother gave me this lens along with my film camera the Pentax ME Super oh about 30 years ago! (shhhh). I was lucky, he was in the Australian Navy then and was able to purchase it overseas for me.

At the time I was doing an Arts course and one of the subjects was Photography. Then, as I got older  (Overseas travel, kids etc) got in the way of taking ‘proper’ shots. First I went to a compact film camera or two and finally about 8 years ago I bought my first digital camera. It was a compact and was a Canon Powershot A something or other. Cost me a whack for those 2.1 megapixels too – over $700 Aus Dollars!!!

I still use that camera once in a while although, compared to today’s standards, it isn’t very compact at all.

Finally, I bought my Pentax Digital SLR and one of the main reasons I went Pentax was so I could use my old lenses. But just yesterday, I really TRIED to use them. And I was really HAPPY with the results….

This Pentax M 50mm 1.7 Asahi is apparently a sought after portraiture lens and there it was just sitting in my old camera bag – for years. The only ‘problem’ with these types of lenses is that they are fully manual. No auto focus, no auto aperture setting no nothing. And gosh, when I used it yesterday, I felt like I was ‘home’. I loved the feeling of physically ‘stopping’ down (or up) the aperture. It just felt that I was more in control.

In all the shots below, I have used some of Sheye Rosemeyer’s Eye Candy Actions – mostly Honeychild and Pale and Interesting. (they are the name of the actual photoshop ‘actions’) In all of them, I have tweaked the action to suit what I wanted….

Anyway – here are some shots I took of my eldest son, Samuel. I realised that I haven’t shared many photos of him here because…

1. He is often out when I have the camera clicking away

2. When I do get to take his photo, he doesn’t like the shot

3. He is a teenager!

I know I have been neglecting this blog and the website. But there have been reasons….

I got stuck….stuck in how to go about what I want to do but now I have been inspired.

I am almost at the end of doing a Photography workshop run by the most talented and lovely Sheye Rosemeyer called EXPLORE.

I have learnt so much in the 3+ weeks and ‘met’ some lovely, like-minded photography nuts. There are many inspiring photogs out there and I just hope to continue on the way I have been.

So we have revamped my website and we are VERY happy with it. Less photos, faster to load, more professional looking and stylish! Still need to add pricing information on the Info page. That is coming soon – I promise.

We have added a ‘follow me’ option on this blog – sign up and it will keep you updated when I update!

Also, I LOVE comments, please say hello!

Task 3 on the Explore Workshop – do a shoot incorporating 3 elements – mine were Socks, Pink & Lollies

How clever is my eldest child, Samuel?? (oops, I think I am meant to call him Sam now but that is difficult for me…) Well, he is so clever he has designed and made this whole wonderful site for me….

Logo, pages, gallery, blog – all by him (with a bit of input by me of course!) but all the hard work has been done by my 14 year old. I am so impressed – hope you all are too!

The name k8tography was dreamed up by Bronte, my 10 year old. She is thrilled to bits that I liked it too!

Should I explain the name? k8 = Kate (me) tography – well from photography. There. That’s it.

I love the logo he has designed. I love the whole idea.

So now for the fun stuff…

I am hoping to grow my business through this site. Not only by taking what I think are great photos of the most gorgeous creatures in your life (be they children, animals or even spouses!) but also by doing a fantastic, special invitation for those special occasions that are coming around all too often now!

Anyway, my excitement is bubbling over and I just want to share with you a photo of my 10 year old, Bronte below….