{Monochrome Monday} last of 2014 - the work version

Well friends, I'm back at work today after my two-week break.

This is actually the week most of SA is on leave so it's going to be a light week at work, I think :)

All the better for goal-setting and such lovely things. I have said it before but this week between Christmas and New Year is my favourite week of the year.

New, fresh diaries and calendars, new notebooks, goals! What more could a girl ask for?!

What are you looking forward to this week?


If you join me for MM, leave a comment so I can come see!

PS I still don't have my word of the year - eeek!

Monochrome Monday and Glamming...

One of my favourite ways to use black and white is when the colours are too busy, nothing complements each other and you almost don't know what to focus on in the photo.

It's really easy for the mother who couldn't care less about the clothes to still have nice pics.

My example... a bit too busy

Much better!

See? Now you don't have to make your kids wear the same/ co-ordinating clothes - just make the pic black and white!


And then that same night (our year-end), the kids took some photos of us.

Both the skew photos (remember when that was all the rage a few years ago? there was even a joke that a skew pic on Instagram got x times as many likes as a straight pic) and that canvas make me twitch but we'll take what we can get with our budding photographers.

In other news, Mandy told me how to access the monochrome setting on my Canon. I'm slightly embarrassed to say I'd never experimented before, and I've had the camera for THREE YEARS!

Boom!

(read your manual if you don't want to be like me)

I posted a pic to FB saying it's been YEARS since we dressed up. I think it was probably 10 years ago at a work function and the two weddings we've been to, we just wear work clothes.

Which means I had to buy the dress.

What about you?
How often do you dress up?

Monochrome Monday and some things on my mind

My Black Friday/ Cyber Monday sale is still on - get your ticket to the in-person OR online workshop. And while you're there, you can read about my simple Christmas so I don't have to rewrite it here :)

Last week I decided not to do a Monochrome Monday post and then even Jenty joined in *blush* :)

So this week we're ON!

 


Last weekend it was raining and cold so I told the kids I'd make them some tea.

When we got home, I couldn't find their (rooibos) tea.

I sent messages to Nanny S (old nanny - baby still hasn't arrived for those interested) and new nanny M.

No-one knew where about the tea.


It's not a box of tea - I store the tea bags in a glass sweet jar i received as a thank-you gift from a broker 18 YEARS AGO for getting a payment done super quick.

Did you get that? 18 years ago.

It's the only thing I have from that company and it was a very nice sweet jar. Of course it was, otherwise I wouldn't have kept it.

Do you know how crazy this makes me?

Does anyone know that story in the Bible where the woman loses a coin and turns her whole house upside down?

That's me.

That day I made them hot chocolate instead, and D had to make a special dash into the shops after church on the Sunday to get some more tea bags.

It's not the tea bags. Who cares about R15?

It's the fact that one weekend it was there and the next weekend it wasn't. I make them tea when I make my afternoon tea so I know it was there the previous weekend.

I don't want to accuse people but where is the jar of tea?



I've turned the kitchen upside down like a woman possessed and nothing. I just went through the pantry one more time.... super carefully....nothing. I'm going to do the same with the sideboard and that blue cupboard (those who've visited know that blue cupboard) and hopefully I find it.

The kids insist they know nothing about it. Granted, I store it up quite high and they've reached for sweets before , but never for tea bags ;)

So, if you were a glass jar full of teabags, where would you hide?
 (I actually do ask myself this question when I "lose" things)

How do you react to things you can't find?
 (PS this is why I'm organised - because I can't STAND it when I can't find things)



PS I accidentally put this child in time out today and I need to apologise in the morning because D told me the whole story came out later and there was much more to it than what I first thought

Which is your favourite black and white picture?

{Monochrome Monday} Week 2 - the main reasons I like black and white photography

I thought I should use this time to share a little about why I like black and white photography so much.

It basically boils down to this - for me, it feels timeless and classic because it focuses in on just the emotion in a pic.

What about you?

I came across this London maternity shoot yesterday. I love the black and whites!!!!
 
Anyway, here are this week's 5 pics.

water bottle

table at our year-end

Anticipation

a colleague doing business :)

this one was taken with my Canon on Saturday in Newtown

Do you like black and whites? Why or why not?
Which is your favourite?

{Monochrome Monday} Week 1 - please join in

As I mentioned last week, my little pink friend is really good for me because she (I need to name her!) helps me to SEE in black and white so I get used to framing and composing the photo exactly as I want it.

For the last 8 weeks of 2014, I'm going to try really hard to post 5 photos every Monday. That's only 40 pics!

This will do at least three things:

1. it will stretch me to look around me for interesting things to capture in black and white - this is my photography goal for 2014
2. I'll get practice using the Nikon
3. I'll have to get the photos off the camera (I'm still seeing the pink one as something that stays in my bag vs my super duper organised workflow with the big black one where I download, label, organise, etc.)

Please play along if you like black and whites. And please use the top pic as a button to link up here. Thank you :)

life in the traffic - can you guess where this is?

interesting candle-lier at Pappas

spying on the boy reading a book...

and also on the other boy reading a book :)

Do you have a favourite?

What were your photography goals for 2014? How are you doing?