I asked Belinda to answer a few quick questions:

That if whoever I took the photo for loves and appreciates it, then it is good, even if not technically perfect.  Oh, and how beautiful catchlights are!

If you’d like to be interviewed on Life’s Visual Journal then send me an email and let me know! talia.carbis (@) gmail.com

Here are some of my favourite snaps of the day. I love the details. xo

Tim, the guy who married them is the same Pastor who married us.

Two of our beautiful friends- Gaby and Sarah.

An unconventional way of signing the register…

This Kim’s brother and a friend. They played Love Cats while they signed the register! It was awesome and everyone was singing along!

Morgan is french and the had a bit of a french ‘theme’ happening. This must have been a family friend? and she played the accordian. It was so fun.

Me, the bride, and Naomi.

They had all these tea cups set out with little sayings tied to them. You took one as you got a drink, but then you got to take it home! It doubled as the bombinere! This is such a good idea, no?!

Instead of like a guest book, they had slips of paper and coloured pens that you could write some kind words onto.

And then you pegged them up to the line in the courtyard!

Handmade bunting! I totally love bunting, and after this I am very inspired to make my own! Great for birthday parties!

They had heaps of pretty flowers in random bottles on the tabels scattered around! So beautiful!

Last, but definitely not least- the bouquet. Is it not GORGEOUS! I seriously thought it was beautiful!!

This week for My Place and Yours Danielle’s asked us to think pink!

Here are the pink things around my house…

We don’t have HEAPS of pink, but when I started looking around I was amazed at how much more then these things there was! Considering it’s just me and Luke (and Pepper) I wouldn’t have thought we would have a huge amount of pink… I will admit though, I am quite partial to it!

What pink thinks do you have around your place?

I really want to know what YOU think. This blog is, after all, a place where you (hopefully) come back too, and I want it to be about things you want to read. The survey is here, and everyone who fills it out for me will be in the draw to win a secret prize! It’s not long, only a few questions, most of which are multiple choice!!

Now, back to our regular programming…

Last weekend we went and saw Alice in Wonderland for Luke’s birthday. We gave it 4/5 stars, which is pretty good for us!

To celebrate I thought I’d share with you some ‘Mad Hatter’ inspired photos I took last year…

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This is at Nimrod's Fortress. It's the biggest fortress/stronghold in Israel. The tank is from a war...

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This is from quad biking up to the top of a mountain. The peacocks are from the Kabutz we stayed at that night.

Last night I quickly went to take photos for Tyson, one of Hayden‘s friends. He needs them for an acting portfolio. The shots had to be clear, and neat- nothing too artsy etc. I’m hoping that the ones I took did the job okay…

Like I said in the first sentence, I’m still learning about photography, and I think I learnt a thing or two from this shoot. Here’s what I learnt!

1. Natural lighting is best. I didn’t have any of that cause of the time I finished work, but I would have much preferred being outside taking these, instead of trying to find places that had enough light. Not having the natural lighting meant that when I was editing them I had to spend a lot of time getting the colour natural looking. Hopfully I pulled it off.

2. Look into the eyes. I’m not sure what other photographers think of this, but my favourite shots of Tyson were the ones where he was looking directly into the camera.

3. Backgrounds. They make a difference. Tyson preferred the brick background, so we took the majority of shots against that. When I look at the photos though, my favourite ones (as far as colouring goes) are the ones against the wood… I agree with Tyson that the brick is more interesting, and gives a nicer look to the photo, but they were harder to edit and get him to have colour in his face (the flash, again from no natural light, washed him out a bit).

4. Planning. This was incredibly spare of the moment. Hayden just messaged me during the day at work, so I had no time to think about the photos we’d be taking until I was at his house getting set up. This meant that neither of us had good ideas about what kind of photos we were taking. Hopefully Tyson got the ones he wanted. I’m doing some photos for another of Hayden’s friends, Zoey, this Saturday, for the same reason. Hopefully we can spend some time planning the types of shots she wants. We’ll be doing it in the daytime too, so look out for another blog post on her photos. Hopefully I’ll have fixed any mistakes!

Hope you enjoyed your long weekend if you were in Australia, and if you’re part of the Commonwealth, then I hope you have a great Queen’s Birthday holiday when it comes around!

My theme for 2009 is: Priority.

I’m sick of doing pointless things, and wasting time. This year I am taking life seriously, and making the most of the time I have. It also involves segregating certain aspects of life- not letting work take up all my time, and not letting the internet take too much time either.

1. Focus on God. I probably say this every year, but I am serious about it now. Luke and I are going on a pilgrimage to Israel in less then two weeks, which will be a great kick start to the year.

2. Love. Spend more time with Luke, just us, spend time with family, and making sure I let people know that I love them. Letting LOVE exude from my character, and showing love even to those people who annoy me. I need to make love a priority in life.

Also, to let work be work and life be life. I work at my parent’s house, so it’s really quite hard to sometimes just ‘hang out’, and it’s easy, because it’s so close, to just spend lots of time there working, and not enough time with Luke.

3. Tell the truth. I like to make stuff up, so this year I’m going to make sure I always tell the truth, even when I’ve done the wrong thing.

4. Be more involved online. I want to spend more time networking, both with my eLearning work, and my personal stuff. This means making the effort to comment on more blogs, maintain my ela blog, bookmark in delicious, post photos to flickr and deviant art, and stay active in twitter, and my personal blogging. I’d also like to make this blog reflect more a ‘whole’ of me- not just the personal side of me.

I’m making a good start to it by being involved in the group twitter365 on flickr.

5. Be healthier. Loose some weight, eat whole foods, exercise regularly, etc. etc. I’m going to go for walks with Pepper, and if I don’t do that, then spend some time on the wii fit. This last month I’ve actually been a lot better at it, so here’s hoping that January is better still!

6. Focus of photography. I’ve found a great site that gives you assignments every week, so I’m going to try to be part of that more, and really learn more about how to increase my skills and knowledge, and learn some new techniques. This means being a regular on Deviant Art, and learning from my photographer friends, like Cam.

So those are my main goals. This year I hope to update monthly on how they’re going, and review them. I also want to spend time doing more crafts and painting if I get the chance, and some more money.

Some of my own stuff has made its way on there. Here are some of my top ones, and a link to my deviant art page.