It's got to be said there are a lot of details to take in at Home Hill, more details than you could possible comprehend in just one visit and it turns out even after 5 or 6 visits. This week I found out about a bathroom I hadn't seen before (with a vivid blue pattern wall paper extending across the ceiling), and I took a series of close up photos for a visitor project allowing me to slow down and focus on some of the  collection pieces I'd just glanced at in previous visits. The piece that struck me the most was a intricate needlework image of Joe, when I'd photographed it on the wall  as part of the dining room decor, I assumed it was a line drawing ; but no it's much more impressive than that.

Sticks & stone & broken bones, that was what I photographed on my recent trip into the central plateau of tasmania.
Heading away overnight with my husdand and our two teenage boys carrying everything we needed for food & shelter for two days on our backs, I choose to take a different kit of camera gear than my usual choice.
Generally on these trips I just go with my 24-70mm l series lens; my favorite lens. But this time I decided to take my very light weight 50mm and a 100mm macro.
My aim was to do something different and look at the surroundings with a different perspective.

A concept began to develop in my mind as I trudged through the landscape, the 50 mm lens I had on the camera during the walk into our camping spot determined that my subject matter would be with in meters of me,  not the wide open landscape vistas. 
The coarse stone, bleached and stunted woody plants at my feet became my focus.

Last weekend I had the good fortune to photograph a beautiful Vow renewal ceremony for Marcus & Angela at Elmslie Vineyard in the Tamar Valley of Tasmania.

Marcus & Angela are a couple of globe trotting Geophysicists, who married in Angela's native USA in September last year, they decided to get dressed up and have another special day for Marcus's family.

An exciting but relaxed event with plenty of collaboration between us to capture a range of beautiful images, that reflect their relationship and the day.

Tasmania, particularly Northwest Tasmania has so many interconnecting back roads amongst the farms and fields, there seems to be an endless combination of routes and a seasonally changing display of crops and activities. 

We're mid summer now and many of the crops are thriving. Pharmaceutical poppies are a major crop here, the lovely red poppies amongst this field are unfortunately not contributing to the yield, they're wild and not desirable, but the add some nice contrast to the images.

Along with poppies, there are hay paddocks, onions, barley and beans being grown around the fields between Railton and Moriarty.

The boys and I (aka; my sons and husband) had a great sunday stoll along the upper Mersey river to the Lewis Fall. The weather was great and the walk was no drama. It was a quite a popular area though, but we managed to find some peaceful spots.

The most interesting thing we saw was a family of cattlemen and woman on horse back, returning from droving a few head of cattle to their run up the valley, their family have been doing this for over 100 years.

I spent an afternoon this week with the curator of Home Hill, Ann Teesdale, photographing the contents of a display cabinet, mostly containing gift to Joe and Enid in there official capacities, as well as some personal items.

Then we had some fun with hats and suitcases, heading back again next; I wonder what we'll look at.

Wishing you all successful 2013:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” 
― Winston S. Churchill

“I'm a success today because I had a friend who believed in me and I didn't have the heart to let him down.” 
― Abraham Lincoln

“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” 
― Leonardo da Vinci