Shameless self-promotion

Memento Vivere readers meet The F Number (hint: click on the link).

The F number is my photography blog where I will post daily (hopefully!) photos. I started it in an effort to use my camera more and to improve my photography.

Have a look around and please comment.

Some photos

I have not blogged in a long time. I have no valid excuses and will make none. Have some photos instead (I've discovered it's much easier to blog in photos).

A while back I announced the acquisition of my DSLR (at last!). Since then I have taken many many photos but have not necessarily uploaded them to my blog (some can be found on my Picasa account).

Since acquiring the camera I've gotten more and more into photography. I hate calling myself a photographer though because that's not what I am. I just happen to own a camera and I like taking pictures. Lately, I've been reading a lot about photography and studying other people's work. I've become a little obsessed. Only a little. I'm starting to worry about myself.

I recently attended a photography roadshow and *gasp* enjoyed it. What a geek thing to do. I'm drawing the line at joining a photography club though. Seriously, that would be the absolute worst. I mentioned reading a lot about photography and one of the sites I spend a lot of time on it Digital Photography School. It's an excellent resource. They have weekly themed competitions on their forum. I haven't uploaded anything yet and didn't think about it until I saw this week's theme: toys. Yes, last night I spent hours sitting in my kitchen taking pictures of a pair of horror smurfs I bought in Swakopmund. I also had a great idea for last week's theme: Film Noir. I've resigned myself to being 80% geek after uploading the toy pictures to the forum. i'll only be 100% upon joining a photography club).

And for good measures I included some photos of a merry-go-round at Ratanga Junction where the photography roadshow was held. I will spare you the technical details of the photos but most have gone through post-processing (At some point I will sing the praises of Photoshop Lightroom 3 Beta 2).

Don't these horses look just terrified?!

Sunset Chasers

Driving home from Langebaan* on Monday we witnessed the most spectacular sunset. We weren't able to get any photographs since by the time we stopped at a suitable location the sun had for the most part already disappeared below the horizon. Yesterday, not willing to risk missing another remarkable sunset, my housemate** and I set off to the best. This was of course a perfect opportunity to test drive my new camera. The sunset was less than spectacular and my shots aren't the greatest since I was still testing out the camera. I also took some shots other than the sunset and with the 55-250mm zoom lens finally managed to get decent photos of the moon.

The sunset chaser herself

* I didn't blog about this because I was too lazy. My housemate wanted to go kitesurfing so we went off to laze on the beach while she got dragged around by a kite. It was a really nice day despite getting sand everywhere (yes, everywhere) and getting sunburned.

** Yes, I have a housemate now. She moved in end of January and will be staying until end of April.

I have a new toy!

I am now the proud owner of a Canon 450D. I didn't have the money to purchase it but saving R4 000 on an extra zoom lens, 8Gb memory card and a bag meant I just had to do it. Where did I get the money you ask? I sold my body you say? No. I stole some cocaine from a Colombian drug lord and sold it at an inflated price to some desperate ad execs you say? No.

I have the best mother in the world. And I will be selling my soul cats in order to pay her back.

Photos, lots of them, to follow.

The weekend that was, in photos

De Kelders photos

Telling a friend about the prawn and salmon sashimi* I had last night reminded me of a photo I insisted on taking while weekending in De Kelders:

Western Cape's D9?

The rest of the photos:

Why do some people think that dead animal heads make for good decor? Ernest is the wildebeest and Hans is on the right. He was named Hans because his antlers made him look german. I forget the name of the one in the middle.

How could someone kill Pumbaa?

Danger Point lighthouse

Dead bird I named the beach after

Some of De Kelders (caves) the town is named after

Sea sponge with coral

Shell carpet

*His response was "Fokken prawns"

Swakopmund photos

Swakopmund is my second favourite international city (Barcelona being the first). Although Swakopmund is less a city and more a quiet seaside town. I'm glad they forgot to bomb it.*

Curios market. They take you for all you've got. (Picture has been cropped and reoutched.)

Tower ceiling in bookshop. (Unretouched.)

Desert chameleon. (Unretouched.)

Mussel carpet on the beach. (Slighty retouched.)

Creepy dentist room diorama in the museum. (Unretouched hence the fuzziness.)

*Morrissey reference for those who don't know.

Eaglevlei photos

These photos were taken at Eaglevlei in Stellenbosch. I went with a couchsurfer who requested to stay with me for 1 night. 3 nights later she's still staying with me and the weekend we go wine tasting in Stellenbosch. By the time we got to Eaglevlei we were well tipsy. Continuing tasting at Eaglevlei got my couchsurfer to the "drunken rolling around on grass" stage. Me, I decided to snap everything in sight. Not all the pictures were horrible, surprisingly. The ones below quite nicely convey the drunken bliss I felt. None of these have been retouched.