Finding the photo of the lizard I posted yesterday led me to further animal photos that I took at the Australia Zoo when I was there in August. These photos of two otters bring back lovely memories for me. I really love watching these animals... I find them fascinating. They are critters with attitude! I hope you enjoy them.

I will be on holidays for a week in north Queensland visiting my family so I hope to take lots and lots of wonderful photos to share when I return. I don't know if I can 'stack' photos on the blogg so they show one per day but figure a week's break won't matter. Micki and David, I'll miss seeing your photos but I'm sure I'll catch up when I return. Cheers.

As I have said before, I haven't been getting out and about much lately so I have looked to past images to post. This lizard was one of the many inmates of the Australia Zoo (Steve Irwin's zoo) where I went in med September on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland. I'm sure David could tell me what this critter is called but I certainly don't know. I do know he was a great model!

I have been unable to get out to take photos over the last week or so, so I am posting more photos taken a couple of weeks ago in the city. Starbucks Coffee Cafe is in City Square on Swanston Street. The second image is looking west along Collins Street just on dusk. The blurr on the left is a tram just leaving the tram stop where I was photographing from. The final image is the Town Hall clock. Apart from straightening and slightly sharpening this image I have not edited it in any way. That is, I have not enhanced the colour.

Image 1: Starbucks: 0.6 second, f11, taken at 7:09pm.
Image 2: Collins Street: 6 seconds, f22, taken at 6:49pm
Image 3: Town Hall Clock: 8 seconds, f11, taken at 6:58pm

My camera is a Canon EOS 10D.

After spending the day in the garden, working very hard, I thought it fitting to put up some photos of my lovely flowers. The apricot rose is one of my favourite roses. It opens up to saucer size and is beautiful, although it has no perfume. The catcus is such an inocuous plant but the flowers are stunning when they come out. The white flowers are rain lily's. This is the first year they have flowered for me and they look stunning. There are a lot of flowers in a 'head'. I was very impressed with the macro shots of them. They had lots of tiny bugs on them and through the lens you can see that these bugs actually spread the pollen very well. The black centre glows ... it almost looks like a hard jelly. I hope you enjoy these images.

Some more images from my night in town a couple of weeks ago. I think this is St Paul's Cathedral on the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets, Melbourne.

I just felt in need of a country photo today so here is one of weeping willows at Bruthen. These trees are considered a pest in the Gippsland and are being systematically erradicated. I met a guy in Bruthen whose job is to travel the countryside getting rid of willows. Where I came from in the tropics of Australia, weeping willows don't grow. When I first saw these trees I fell in love with them. It was therefore a great shock to me to discover they are a pest to farmers and environmentalists. I must admit ... I still love them!

These images are a compilation of flower photos which I took in Bruthen 6 or 7 weeks ago ... just when Spring had sprung. I tend to take many flower images but don't often get to show a lot at once. This seemed a good way to incorporate many into a couple. There are day lilies, forget-me-nots, tulips, whisteria, snowdrops and two flowers I don't know the names for. Can you sort out which is which? Enjoy.

A week or so ago when I was in the city photographing Collins and Swanston Streets, I took this photo of one of the Westin Hotel windows which looks over City Square on Swanston Street. Enjoy!

A few weeks ago after my drive back to the city from Bruthen, I got out of my car and found this dragonfly on the roof of the car. He/she was looking very much worse for wear. These are not the sort of dragonfly photos I envisaged taking but I grabbed my camera and took these images and then put the dragonfly onto a potplant where I assume it died. I looked for it a couple of days later but it was no-where to be found.

Life has been extremely busy the last few weeks with not much time for taking photographs. These two images are of a cafe in Swanston Street, Melbourne in City Square. A very pleasant place to pass some time I would imagine.

Last evening I went into town just on sunset. I had been in town around this time Friday evening and had noticed the beautiful blue colour to the sky but I didn't have my camera with me. This image was taken in Collins Street from the tram stop near the corner of Swanston Street looking east up Collins Street. The lights were on but the sky was dark blue. This image was taken at 1.3 seconds at f.11 at 7:50pm.

I was inspired today after many weeks of lack of enthusiasm for taking photos. This morning I did a photo shoot of my friend, her family and new baby. The mother/child photo was an absolute fluke but I really like it. It was a hot day in Melbourne (26 degrees C), the first really hot day that I can remember for a while. I had been taking photos of the baby and put the lens cap on the lens while the baby was settled. When I took the cap off, there was condensation on the lense. By the time I took the photo, the only condensation was on the bottom of the lense ... as it turns out, just around the baby. I really like this ghost-like image.
The second image was taken in a night shoot around Melbourne city, specifically around Collins and Swanston Streets. This statue was on a pole that was back-lit by light against a wall. It took a bit of manouvering to get the statue in the right position but I'm really pleased with the results. I hope you enjoy.

This pretty flower was growing in my friend's yard in Bruthen. It is sort of like a gerbra but it's not ... however I don't know what it is called.

Another photo taken at the book launch a week or so ago. This skink wasn't quick enough to get away before a boy/man found him and picked him up. I don't know if his front and back leg was hurt before he was caught up or during the event. After I took photos of him, he was put back outside when the man was loudly yelled at by his wife.