New House in Brisbane - Dec12

It's been a busy month for us as we've taken possession of our new home in Brisbane. The first few weeks were manically crazy moving in and clearing out the back garden (we were 'Cookie proofing' it).

We have some renovation plans for the new place, so a good starting point are the 'before' shots. Click on shots to enlarge.

(Below) The entrance room. Eventually will become the 'mud' room - for storing shoes, coats etc

(Below) Looking down the hallway from the entrance room

(Below) One of the three bedrooms - this one has become Jenn's office

(Below) Shot of the lounge from the entrance room. Master bedroom first on the left and my small study second on left. Looking out towards the dining area

(Below) The master bedroom with Cookie taking a nap on the bed!

(Below) Ensuite bathroom

(Below) My little study a.k.a. the 'man cave'

(Below) Looking back up the hallway towards the entrance room

(Below) The guest bedroom which is very empty at present!

(Below) The lounge looking back towards the entrance room with master bedroom door on the right

(Below) Main bathroom - pretty dated and needs replacing!

(Below) The dining room which feeds onto the veranda outside

(Below) Our 'lovely' kitchen which has loads of 'character' (read hideous...). First project will be to replace this

(Below) This room is adjacent to the kitchen and currently houses the fridge plus Cookie's sleeping quarter. The plan is to knock the kitchen wall out and combine with this room for a large kitchen

(Below) Yep - lovely...(not)

(Below) The outside veranda. In the short space of time we've been here, have already sunken a few beers here and enjoyed the outdoor life!

(Below) Steps leading down from veranda onto backyard

(Below) Our backyard

Fraser Island Holiday - Oct12

We finally made it to Fraser Island - back in late 2003 when Jenn and I did a long road trip from Cairns to Sydney we'd spoken about checking out Fraser Island one day.

Our good friends Mike and Tash invited us along to a short holiday on the island. It didn't disappoint either. It was quite an amazing feeling driving along the sandy beaches at speeds up to 80 kph! The interior of the world's largest sand island consisted of rain forest and the odd beautiful lake (Lake MacKenzie and Wabby are spectacular by the way).

The below shots are just a brief sample of the beauty of the place. I did some cross processing effects on some of them, and applied HDR effects to others.

Jacaranda Trees in Bloom - Oct12

Every October we are treated to an explosion of purple as the Jacaranda trees come out into bloom. The flowering season is very brief though.

The Jacaranda are native to tropical and sub tropical parts of the world. Much of east coast Australia (lying within the sub tropical belt) is lucky enough to experience the colour fest at this time of the year.

It is also a reminder for me that Xmas is not that far off!

These photos are a joint venture between my IPhone and the Hipstamatic app and my Canon 5 Mkii digital SLR. Hipstamatic can do some pretty cool funky things to your images so a few have been deliberately over cooked and cross processed.

Brisbane Festival of Lights - Sep12

Every year as part of the Brisbane Festival, the council puts on a spectacular laser light show on the river. This runs for three weeks. We went down one night to capture the action and it did not disappoint!

We also took a few of the Chinese lanterns and the ferris wheel. Enjoy the shots.