This is what the world came to in my lifetime.

Task: Write Your Own Tw-Obituary (your life in less than 140 characters)

2 weeks underwater, 11 years asleep. Enjoyed travel, technology, taking photos. Will be missed by lolcat writers and McDonald's everywhere.

When the tools you need are in your very own hands.

Task: Yellow Like The Summer Sun. Take a photo dominated by the solar color.

I read this morning's Daily Create and decided to go out in search of yellow things to photograph. On my way out the door I grabbed my iPhone (the best camera is the one you have with you, of course), my car keys and a bag of lolly bananas to snack on during the drive. It wasn't for at least another 2.5 minutes that I realised I was holding a prime subject in my very own hands.

Of course I couldn't just snap a photo of a lolly bag, that's too lazy even for me, so I ventured into the kitchen in search of something to photograph them in. A wine glass, perfect! But all the photos looked ridiculous with the toaster, table, cats etc in the background. I racked my brains for some sort of backdrop and remembered a roll of block printing paper I'd bought a couple of weeks ago. I've been meaning to mess around with makeshift studios to photograph students' artwork and now seemed like the perfect opportunity. I tried in a few different locations and came to the conclusion that I definitely need to refine my studio skills, probably using reflectors. But I did end up with a photo I liked:



I opened it in Aperture - yep, overkill for iPhone photos! - and played with the tools. Since the colour of lolly bananas is variable and these were fairly pale, I ramped up the saturation and decreased the vibrancy, which left yellow as the only colour in the photo.

I'm pretty happy with the result of 10 minutes' work and I think it will be a useful skill to refine and teach kids in the classroom.

Australia: we weep.

Task: Write a limerick about someone famous. Like really famous.

A Prime Minister ought to have class.
Julia Gillard was given the arse.
Kevin Rudd copped flak,
But then he came back,
Now the whole Labor Party's a farce.

I'm not normally a complete cynic but I couldn't help writing this limerick today. Australia's been in some chaos with our political parties lately and it's become a circus. Shamefully, respect for our leaders has dropped astronomically and I continue to hear young people say "I'm not voting this year, nobody deserves to win". This is unusual in Australia because voting is compulsory, so it means they are either willing to cop the fine, or will go all the way down to the polling booth and line up only to put in a "donkey vote" (a form which is either blank or completed incorrectly). It's a sad state of affairs, currently with only a dim flickering light at the end of the tunnel. This post is not a statement of my own political belief but a reflection of what I hear around me.