These images of a clock tower come from my visit to the Sunshine Plaza at Maroochydore on the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Australia. I found this shopping centre quite amazing as it is built on and around a water canal and water features throughout the site. This is winter weather in Queensland in August. To view more photos of the Plaza, click here.

Following on from David Kleinert's bird photos from Toronga Zoo in Sydney, these photos of a blue and red mawcaw were taken at the Australia Zoo on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. Free-flight birds seem the current fashion for entertainment at zoos. Very impressive they are too! Apart from these two mawcaws, I saw a kookaburra being trained but it was obviously not up to performance standard at the moment. I have a feeling they also fly a wedge-tailed eagle but I didn't see it in flight ... only on a trainers hand. I'll post some photos of the eagle another day.

Again, while on holiday at the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, I spent a day at the Steve Irwin 'Australia Zoo'... the "crikey" bloke! This zoo was the most amazing, beautifully laid-out zoo I have ever seen. All the animals are in peak condition and are obviously extremely well-cared for. It is really obvious that any money Steve and his wife Terri make is ploughed back into the zoo. There are big plans underway to enlarge the zoo from approx 80 hectares to 300 hectares. If you ever get to Australia, I highly recommend you visit this zoo if you have the opportunity. Although I have started with photos of the crocodile, Marco, I will post various photos of other animals at the zoo over the next few weeks.

Queensland has a very large coastline, sections of which are uninhabited. The Australian volunteer coast guards do a great job patrolling the waters off the coast but, as with many services, there are not nearly enough to do the job properly. However, this is a pretty nice boat to be cruising in. Great colour!

While on holiday in Queensland last week, we were visiting Noosa on the Sunshine Coast and came across this pellican. This bird was quite a character and was not afraid of people at all. It came up quite close looking for food. A young boy was fishing and caught a fish that was about 6 to 8 inches long. Needless to say, this fish became lunch for the pelican. In photos two and four of this series you can see the fish being swallowed and then see it sitting in the neck of the bird. Goodness knows how long it takes to digest. I hope you enjoy these images.

Thank you so much to all the people who have commented on my images over the last few months. It is great to get feedback and constructive criticism is always welcome as I do like to improve my photo techniques.

Well, I'm off to sunny Queensland tomorrow as I couldn't get the airlines to postpone my flight. They have to have 24 hours notice!! So, this is the last post you'll have from me for a week as I don't know if this Blogger can be set up to load an image a day for you or not and it's too late to find out if it can. For future reference, if anyone knows, I'd love to hear from you. Meanwhile, I hope to have lots of lovely sun and beach shots to show you when I return.

This lily was just one of the flowers that I took photos of on my macro day last week. I love the creamy texture of the image of the real close centre-of-lily photo. I hope you enjoy.

After a few very hectic days moving office and looking after a very sick daughter, I managed to grab my camera today (beautiful day in Melbourne) and cruise around my yard to see what I could see. Spring is definitely in the air! I took heaps of macro images some of which I will put up over the coming week. I thought I'd start with this weed -- the dandelion! I find it amazing how this beautiful golden flower transforms into the white puff-ball that spits out hundreds of seeds to reproduce itself all around my yard. It does make for some lovely macro shots. I hope you enjoy these images.

Here's one of my favourite images taken last year from in front of Crown Casino of Flinders Street station, the Yarra River and city buildings.

I had an interesting experience tonight. A work colleague and friend of my husband is also a painter and a very good one. He asked if he could see my photos and asked if I would be interested in letting him use some of them to paint and, if they sell, I get 10% of the price of the painting. Apart from the thrill of that, he looked at my photos from quite a different perspective ... a painters perspective. He is particularly interested in night scenes with lots of rich colours and, preferably, photos of familiar Melbourne landmarks which is what he has found sells well. This photo of the Carlton Post Office in Elgin Street really caught his eye. He liked the golden colour on the old building with the pool of light to the left of the building and the green window outline below the building. Listening to him explain why he liked the photo made me look at the image in a new way ... a very exciting way! I hope you like it as much as he did.

These photos were taken at the park yesterday while I was walking my dogs. They have been built on the site of the old brickworks in Brunswick. The thing about all of them is the amazing colours that they have been painted as well as the fact that they front onto an amazing park. I wish I had the same views as them! The architecture is also amazing although I'm an old-fashioned person myself and like California bungalows with lots of stained and cut glass everywhere.

Colour, colour everywhere ... well, almost! I took these pictures during a walk in the park this afternoon while walking my dogs. After a grey start to the day, the sun decided to make an appearance and the late afternoon sunshine was very pleasant. The bright col0urs of the playground equipment was a sight for sore eyes. The lovely golden colour of the wattle flowers brightened the afternoon and even the radio tower against the (mainly) blue sky was a pleasure to look at. I do think Spring is not too far away.

I tried for half an hour last night to upload to this site but just could not get through. Anyone else have this trouble?

Last Saturday on my way home from Frankston, I decided to find a park I had seen from the Westgate Bridge and take photos of the bridge. It was a very cold night with a high wind ... bad enough to move the camera even when on a tripod and being held steady. When I arrived at the park, there were four cars parked but I couldn't see any people. I was a little apprehensive about being in this area by myself at night but toughed it out anyway. After taking one shot of the bridge with a hand-held camera, I realised the futility of doing this so went to my car and collected my tripod. As I was extending the tripod, one of the parked cars started up and left the parking area. Immediately afterwards, the other three cars followed until I was left alone. Very spooky! They obviously did not like my tripod and camera. Mmmmm. I wonder what they were all doing?!! The top image was taken from this car park but the second and third images were taken half a kilometer away on the other side of the bridge. A much better perspective I think. I really liked the image of the wire fence with the blurred lights from the bridge behind it. Enjoy.

One day when doing a shoot in a park, the police helicopter came overhead quite low. I was able to take my camera off the tripod and swing it up just as the helicopter flew over my head. This is the best of three photos I managed to take.

This image was taken around my workplace last week. It was an attempt to photograph lines and angles. Originally in colour, I made it B&W in photoshop as it was almost B&W (it had a pale blue sky) to start with. I'm not too sure that I like it. There almost seems to be too many lines and angles. What do you think?

I was too exhausted to do my blog last night so these are yesterday's photos. Actually, they are last week's photos taken around my workplace at lunchtime. I hope you enjoy them.