iPhoneography Book from Blurb

Late last year I put together a collection of some of my favourite iPhone images in a book over at Blurb. There was a promotion at the time, so I chose images that made me smile and reminded me of the place or occasion, and using Blurb's template, hey presto! a mini book was created. I ordered said mini book and was chuffed with the quality and the rendition of my images. Yeh!

Here's a selection for you to look at:

The skies are just so big in the country, making the landscape so small.

I love taking friends from afar here and see the looks on their faces when they first spot this gorgeous view

Although I managed to get lost on this circuit trail (!), it didn't bother me with a view like this to distract me

I will always look at this view and think fondly of you ~ how we all miss you ♥

Here's the Deal:

Head over to Blurb and take a look at the book, you can preview about 15 of the 60 pages. If you like the sample enough, click on add to cart. And this is where you'll be helping me out. My earnings from each book is set to $5.00 and I'm going to pledge each $5.00 earned from each book sold to my Ride to Conquer Cancer that is happening later this year.

Who is this book perfect for?

* Those in a hurry to get through a book and say, "Yeh, I finished a book in a day". (There are NO words in the book! That's a bonus right there!)
* Those who are into iPhoneography and dig the faux-retro feel you can apply to images using the various apps rendering the world an arty-farty wonderous place.
* Those who hate iPhoneography and belong to "I Hate iPhoneography" clubs. They could take my book along to one of their meetings and make it a point of discussion.
* Those that live in Australia and love this wide brown land of ours and can't get enough of seeing images from all it's parts.
* Those that can't wait to save their pennies and visit this wide brown land of ours - this book contains a teeny little fraction of what they can expect to see when they visit.
* Those creative writers who look for inspiration in images - there's plenty of white space around the images for you to jot some notes down for your next plot.
* Those who love online shopping and getting parcels delivered to their door while wearing pj's and slippers. They could buy it for themselves, or even a loved one (notice the ♥ shaped tree on the front cover!!)How perfect would this be as a gift!
* Those that are starting out in photography and want to use their iPhone as a practice tool - this book may help them to see the world around them with new eyes.
* Those who have had a family member or friend affected by cancer and who don't mind forking out about A$26.95 of which $5.00 goes to Ride to Conquer Cancer. The book can be a sort of super fancy receipt of their donation.
* Those that have been lucky enough not to have any friends or family affected by cancer and see the A$26.95 (with the $5.00 going to Ride to Conquer Cancer) as a testament to their lucky break they have been spared the anguish, stress and world-will-never-be-the-same-again feeling that comes with a cancer diagnosis.
* Those that are just plain nice and aren't necessarily into iPhoneography, but have a spare A$26.95 of which $5.00 goes to Ride to Conquer Cancer, and don't mind helping out a gal with her goal, whilst helping others along the way.

If I've left any other types of people who you think would love to buy this book, then drop me a line and I'll add them to the list.

 What's that? What else can you do? Well, I'd love it if you shared, tweeted, facebooked, google+, tumblered, stumbled, and basically shared the shit out of this post! I would love to be able to write a future post letting you know just how many $5.00 donations were transferred from the Blurb account to the Ride to Conquer Cancer fund.

Ride to Conquer Cancer 2013

A few weeks ago I sent an email out to all the friends and contacts in my address book. I wanted to let them know that although I hadn't completely lost my mind, I was going to be undertaking a ridiculously difficult challenge in 2013. Much to my amusement, several friends contacted me to let me know that my email was spamming them. Conversation as follows:

Me: Oh hi friend!

Friend: Oh hi, ummm, I think your email is sending out spam.

Me: Oh no! Really! I'm so sorry! I hope your computer didn't get infected by any nasties!

Friend: No, nothing like that. Just some long winded email with lots of links at the bottom. No way was I going to click on those links. Pffftt!

Me: Ummm, did you happen to notice what the blurb was about? Did it happen to mention anything about a bike ride?

Friend: Now that you mention it...it did... a 200km bike ride - No wait... you're not doing that are you? *look of astonishment followed by look of disbelief* Bhahahahaha! You are doing that!

Me: Yeh, I am, and that email isn't spam. It's a real email from me. I wrote that long winded blurb and those links go straight to my page over at the Ride to Conquer Cancer. I'm so excited, it's going to be fun and I can't wait! (and I'm not even joking here people).

Now that I've been able to clear up with a few of my friends that I am indeed doing this challenge and that the email was in no way spam, I'm not offended one little bit that some of my friends think the challenge is beyond ludicrous. (sniff...) And do you know why? Because two friends completed the challenge this year and they said it was fun, and they're never wrong about stuff that's fun. Because I will be joining three friends who have also signed up to take part in this challenge, and it's always easier to face up to a challenge when you're with your friends. Because I know that even though my friends laugh and think it's madness on my part, I know they'll support me in any way they can.

It's going to be all sorts of challenging -  physical, financial and emotional. I knew it would be emotional, but just how emotional was evident when I opened up the email to let me know that one of my friends had left wonderful words of encouragement and had already donated - I burst into tears. It's going to get a whole lot more emotional, isn't it...

So please, if you've read this far, then do me a favour and please link this on your FB, Google+, twitter or whatever your favourite social networking site is; consider making a donation (anonymously if you prefer); leave me a message of support in the comments below. I'll keep this blog up to date with how the training, and the whole process, is going. Speaking of training, that won't start up for a few more weeks due to some health things that are being finalised. Now, please clickity click on the startled housewife portrait above and view my page to find out more information about this insane challenge.

Oh, forgot to point out that there is a widget in the margin of this blog that directly links you to my page. Do visit and consider donating. Let's see if we can conquer cancer :)

A Symbol of Hope - Fine Art Photography examples

What does the term "Symbol of Hope" mean to you?  Wikipedia defines hope as being the belief of a positive outcome, especially in relation to an amount of depair or wanting or wishing or suffering.  We can hope for such basic, trivial and mundane things such as "I hope my washing dries before it gets dark", "I hope there's chocolate in the cupboard for me to snack on" to a deeper, more urgent need to hope - "I hope she'll be alright", "I hope I can make it to the hospital in time", " I hope a cure for cancer can soon be found".

It's always interesting when asking artists to depict an abstract emotion such as hope.  It can be more challenging than it first seems - how do you show hope in an image?  And what does hope sybolise to you?  As august is Cancer awareness month here in Australia, it was timely to ask artists from "A Photographer's Craft" to submit images to this challenge.   These artists have also donated works through "The Gift of Art" where all the artists' proceeds are being donating to the National Cancer Insitute. The disease that is cancer affects each and everyone of us.  I don't think I've come across a person for a long while, who hasn't in some way been affected by this disease.  I am hopeful of a cure, I am hopeful that as a society we are doing all we can to assist those researchers in finding a cure, and to help those who are living with the disease.

The following images were submitted by those artists who wanted to show their "Symbol of Hope".

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whether it's the early morning rays of light, a dove in full flight, the fresh face of youth, a guardian angel watching over you, the strength that is nature or your faith in your God, it's important that we hold that sense of hope.  Thanks goes to Adrian Rachele, Mark German, Dana DiPasquale, Sue Wickham, lallymac, Redtempa, Tom Vaughan and Karri Klawiter for taking part in the challenge and allowing this images to be shown on this blog.

We Break and We Bend...

We Break and We Bend and We Turn Ourselves Inside Out by Dana DiPasquale

...and We Turn Ourselves Inside Out" is the name of this piece created by Dana DiPasquale. It captures the nature of life and how even though we may be fragile, when we dig deep we are strong and resilient. At times, however, we may not think so - often it's when we look back that we realise just how much we did bend and break and turn ourselves inside out. Proceeds of the sale of this work of art will be donated to the National Cancer institute.