Just worked 8 days in a row, with no chance to get near this blog, it seems like ages ago that I captured this pics of Jack practicing his camp fire lighting.

Jack has a school camp coming up soon where they're expected to light their own fires and cook there own meals. Being the slightly paranoid parent that I am I wanted to make sure he knew what he was doing.

Not only did he light the fire he cut the wood and cooked us a meal too, I think he'll survive the few days away at camp.

I don't think winter is quite finished yet, but today the sun was shining and putting a nice glow on everything.

This morning the mail box greeted me with a parcel note from the postie so, I grabbed the camera bag and took a stroll into down town Railton to see which of my online purchases had arrived.

For those of you who don't know the town of Railton began creating topiary features around the streets in 2002 to lift the image of the town and give visitors something interesting to do when they spend time here - some of them are pretty cute.

I enjoyed my morning stroll and collected not one but three parcels from the post office, which made taking photos on the way home a bit tricky as my hand were pretty full. 

An hours walk, three parcels and 150 new photos of Railton, time to have some lunch and think about what I'm eventually going to do with all the photos I've taken and will probably continue to take of this town.

Domestic duties completed for the day, I packed up the car with: camera, tripod, gumboots and a couple of snacks.

After dutifully letting Mr Slater know where I was heading, I took off towards Deloraine and then Liffey Falls.

Even though I hadn't been to these fall before I had a pretty good idea of what to expect as photos abound on redbubble and google earth - hence the gumboots, I was hoping to get a few different shots from the far side of the river.

Unfortunately it became evident within a few seconds of my first steps into the river that there was a hole in my gumboot and me being the softy that I am I couldn't quite bring myself to spend much time in the river with increasingly wet and cold foot.

I did venture off the bank but it require quite a bit of effort to compose, and focus the camera on the tripod while standing on one foot, so I didn't get far.

Is it really August already? As usual the year is flying by, it seems the dark days of winter are diminishing - though I'm sure there will be a few surprises to come.

2012 is looming towards us, Bowen's grade 6 class has been visiting the high schools they will attend next year and 35 years is heading my way.

I've chalked up 12 months as a press photographer, but with such a lot to learn I still have mixed feelings about really owning that job title, most of the time I feel like such a beginner.

I photographed some lovely ladies and their young children who were holding a craft fair last weekend, reality bit – that was me 10 years ago, my life has moved so far from that point it’s almost unrecognisable.

I’m yet to decide if beginning my professional career at 33 was good or bad, self-doubt is such a robber.