Kim was kind enough to let me take some photos of her. I have been studying some flash photography videos and articles and wanted to have a play with multiple flashes around dusk. The trick is to balance the ambient light with the light filled from the flash...especially tricky as the light constantly changes during the last 30 minutes of the day.


So far I only have two wireless flash triggers to was was somewhat limited (ideally I would like to have three triggers).



It was really good to be able to do some experimenting. For these photos I used one flash 45 degrees to the back and another 45 degrees in front. On the back I am using a CTO gel. In the beginning I was using one on the front one as well, but when I got home to look at the photos I could see that it was too warm (Lesson learnt that I should use the warm gels on the back). On the photos here there is no gel on the front flash only on the back.


I would have liked to stay just a bit longer to play, but kim was getting a bit cold.


With a more time I would have been able to enhance some of the zoom effects as seen in this photo:



Definitely a trick I'll be using in the future...makes for some cool effects. At lot of the photos are actually quite nice, but the two above are my preferred ones.

It is now week 31, so only 9-10 weeks until baby is due to arrive.

Kim is getting a fair bit bigger and the baby is now very active. So far things looks good although Kim is worried that the boy will be a shortie like mummy.

I read this article about how to take water photos in an easy way. The photos is taken using a bare flash firing onto a white background at 1/8th power. The blue colour is because I (on purpose) changed the white balance of the camera to Tungsten.

I only had a shallow painting tray at my disposal. This paint residue in the bottom of the tray creates the pattern in the photo. I also couldn't get a nice formed drop pattern forming due to the drops hitting the bottom of the shallow tray unevenly.

Lessons for next time: Use a deeper tray. Make it black so that no other colours penetrate and make dure the water can reach the edge of the tray. Next time I try I will use one of the large scanpans we have...I think it will be better suited.

During the Easter Break Kim and I made a trip to Tasmania. This was to be our last holiday together before the baby arrives.

Tasmania is an island south of Australia about 1.5 times larger than Denmark. The east coast is lightly populated and the west coast is mainly national parks and forests.

We had rented a car to make it easier for us to get around and the first place we headed to was Cradle Mountains national park. This is probably one of the most iconic places in Tasmania and every Australian has seen the pictures of the mountain itself.



The drive there was full of contrast. There has always been of criticism of the lumber industries in Tasmania and when you see the methods they use to cut down trees then it is easy to see why. They don't do selective cutting, they instead pretty much bulldoze whole areas which then take many decades to recover.

cruise ship that had an indoor games room, a pool and sundeck at the top. Even from our rooms right at the bottom, we had a magnificent view of a small white mosque-like structure on top of huge sandy mountains dotted with small caves.

In the evening we had the opportunity to visit a small souq (local bazaar) selling t-shirts, papyrus paintings, mounds of saffron and dry scented lotus flowers, brown, red, yellow indigo mounds of fragrant spices - all of which some of us bargained for - the most expensive £25 papyrus painting (AUD$5, 25DK.Kr) to cheapest £15 embroidered t-shirts with hieroglyphics (AUD$3, 15DK.Kr). To top the evening off, we took a £5 horse carriage ride back to the ship.

Wednesday 17. november 2004 (7:30am start)

It seemed some of the family had succumbed to a tummy bug. The rest of us steered clear of unwashed fruit, fresh salads, raw vegetables and drinks made with local water. However, this didn't stop us from going out to see a few sights.

The Unfinished Obelisk



























Had this obelisk been completed, it would've been the largest and heaviest ever made standing at 142 metres. It sat in a granite quarry, perfectly complete on three sides but abandoned when a flaw was found in the stone. It is almost impossible to imagine how the ancient egyptians could've moved even a single rock made from this quarry as it stood a great many miles from any of the monuments ever made. Unfortunately for Egypt, most of its obelisks have been spirited to other countries - to Italy, Britain, France and even Argentina by foreign archaeologists in the last centuries. Most of us didn't have the chance to view the complete obelisk before Adam rang a bell that he carried (to annoy us I suppose)

High Dam

For centuries the Nile controlled the Egyptians' lives - either flooding or insufficient water levels were disastrous for the people who relied on this huge water source for their livelihood. When the Aswan Dam was built, some of the villages in the south lost their water supply.

30 years ago, a new High Dam was built which resulted in the man-made Lake Nasser to the south being created ==>

This meant many people had to be moved as villages were buried, as well as some of the ancient egyptian monuments such as the Temple of Philae.

At its highest point, the High Dam stands at 111m high, 3.8km long and 980m wide at the base.

Three times the number of stones used for Cheops' Pyramid was used.

Videoing isn't allowed as it is a high-security military area - should there be an attack on this Dam, then much of Egypt would be submerged under water and would be a disaster for the country.


Given only 10min, Adam "rang" us back to the bus.



Temple of Philae

After Aswan Dam, the Temple of Philae was submerged for six months a year and tourists had to view it through the murky waters of Lake Philae. When the High Dam was built, it threatened to submerge the Temple permanently, so was moved stone by stone to a new island similarly landscaped. Philae is special in that it's only accessible by boat and the sunset forms a spectactular backdrop. A temple dedicated to Isis (goddess of women, sex purity), it was one of the last outposes for paganism and due to the popularity of Isis, was also used by the early Christians. The Temple walls and many pillars were filled from top to bottom with hieroglyphs and images of Isis - many defaced by the early Christians who considered ancient Egypt's gods to be "pagan". I had a fantastic afternoon walking in and out of all the nook and crannies - visiting the Birth House, Nilometer, the "Pharaoh's Bedstead" and much to the amusement of the family, I was the last to emerge.



Kom Ombo

The ship set sail from Aswan at 3:45pm after an afternoon spent sunbaking and drinking beer (typically danish to make the most of sunshine and beer). We were sailing 48km north of Aswan to Kom Ombo - the site of an ancient city devoted to the worship of a crocodile god, Sobek. The ancient city is long gone and crocodiles existing on nearby sandbanks have been hunted to extinction.

At sunset, we visited the Temple of Kom Ombo, dedicated to both Sobek the Crocodile god and Horus, the falcon-headed sky god Isis' son. Although we didn't have the opportunity to explore this temple, it was both spectacular and eerie at sunset, with large light illuminating it. There existed a pit filled with water, with a platform halfway down, where crocodiles were lured in from the Nile with human flesh, and the largest crocodile was caught and mummified as a tribute to Sobek. At the Chapel of Hathor (Horus' wife), an American shouted "Geez, I thought I was supposed to see crocodile statues!" *laugh* It contained two of the mummified crocodiles found at the Temple.

We returned to a small cocktail party before dinner, provided by the ship to introduce all the staff responsible for making our trip enjoyable.







Thursday 18. november 2004 (7am start)

We sailed overnight past Kom Ombo to Edfu, a small regional center for the sugarcane trade, visited the Temple of Horus and sailed on to the Lock-crossing at Esna.

Temple of Horus

This is the most complete of its kind, a Greco-Roman temple that conforms exactly to ancient egyptian principles of architecture ie visit Edfu to see what almost every other temple in Egypt would've looked like in its original form. We were awed by the massive walls of the pylons at the entrance, distince reliefs showing mirror images of Horus and the pharaoh grasping the hair of his enemies. It was built by Cleopatra's father around 50yr BC. Standing in the forecourt of this well-preserved temple we can see mud-brick houses lined up at the top of the compound walls because this temple was once buried right up to the ceiling with a village built on top of it. Many of the temple relifes capture the cataclysmic battle of Horus with his brother Seth. We entered a small Nilometer - a dark, dank tunnel that smelled of pee and was once used to measure the level of the Nile. Again I was the last to emerge (a couple of minutes late only) to the loud applause of everyone (and a huge glare from Adam).



Returning to the ship in time for the 9am sail, we set off for Esna, 48km south of Luxor. Whilst the family tanned on the sundeck, I sat in the sun at the front of the boat, enjoying sense of peace and tranquility. It was truly beautiful to sit on a boat not too big or small, to watch the changing scenery on both sides, passed fields of giant palms and lush green fields, a smoking metal, the ship moving at a leisurely 16km/hr and passing some incredibe mountains of sand and cliffs. Ole joined me for a chat - he Irene are moving to Greenland on Tuesday. Later in the morning, I joined René and Ulla by the pool, gossiping about Bedstefar and family resemblances, watching Vinnie's kids and Sebastian splash about the pool, Lonnie, Sarah Birit stripped down to the minimum to get a bit of colour.



We reached Esna and used the few hours to get off the ship and stretch our legs after a morning of lazing around the pool. I was itching to walk around Esna, away from tourists and see how the locals lived. René and I headed for the quieter streets avoiding the busy streets around a souq. We were followed by a few children clad in long grey or white robes, who guided and annoyed us. Most of the narrow streets were unpaved, some very muddy and smelling of manure. Skinny, skeletal donkeys balanced again flat wagons, many shy girls waving from the darkness of their doorways or 2nd-level windows, whilst little boys came out to say hello and mill around us. Most houses were simple of mud bricks, with tiny wooden shuttered windows to keep the intense summer heat out. Some had extremely ornate wooden doors, reminiscent of colonial days. Occasional peek in doorways revealed empty mud-lined rooms as most people lived in the upper floors. Eventually René shouted imshee! (go away) as the kids got noisier, more aggressive, pulling on our arms and throwing pebbles at us. When I stumbled over a whimpering black and white disease-ridden puppy in brown paper, it was kicked aside - making me almost reach out for it if René hadn't stopped me.it was wise not to even make contact witht the children, who were dust-covered and clad in the long egyptian grey robes. It was such a relief when they finally left us even though we knew they were hiding in in alleyways watching us wind through the streets. There were goldsmiths glittering with ornate rings, earrings and necklaces; tailors still sewing by hand on the steps of their shop; coffee houses filled with solitary men smoking their water-pipes - their eyes following us down the street. We had spent so much time just sitting around that it was good to get away.

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14. March 2010 08:17
by Rene Pallesen
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It is now week 25 and almost the third trimester. Kim is certainly getting a lot bigger these days but is still very active with swimming, yoga and walking (According to Kim baby is very active too). Both baby and mum are so far doing fine.





They say that most of the growth is in the third trimester...she could be huge!


We have finished painting the baby room and we have bought the most essential furniture such as a cot, a chest of drawers, car seats etc. It is now up to Kim to decorate the room so that it looks nice.

Today Kim and I met up with Sasha and his wife to go to 'Taste of Sydney'. This is an annual event where the premier restaurants of sydney and food and wine producers showcase their food and wine.

This year it was held in Centennial park which is the largest park in sydney which is pretty convenient for us.

At the event they had what the call 'Chef's table'. This is where you can sit down with the chefs of some of the premier restaurants and they will tell you about their restaurants, their food and you can ask them questions. In the mean time they were serving us seafood, wine and cheese (I discovered a new cheese that I in particular really liked).





They also had showcases where some of the chefs from some of sydney best restaurants show you how to cook different dishes. We went to one session where we saw Matt Moran from Aria prepare a lovely cured trout. This was cured like Gravad laks using salt, sugar, coreander and fennel and then cured a secod time using dijon mustard and dill.




The different restaurants were also having some of their food for sale. Some of it was quite nice (I had a nice yellowfin tuna), but I don't think it was a proper representation of their food. It is difficult to prepare and cook in large quantities without access to proper kitchen facilities, so most of the food was more fancy fast food.

Last weekend Kim and I went to see King Lear at the Sydney Opera House. Kim had managed to get cheap preview tickets on the third row from the stage which is pretty unheard of.



The play wasn't anything fancy in terms of stage production, costumes or anything (Actually some of the actors were wearing fairly modern denim jeans).

On the side of the stage they had positioned a drumkit and a girl was banging away all throughout the first half of the performance. I found this very distracting and annoying since I was already trying hard to concentrate on understanding the old Shakespearean English.

During the second half they moved the drumkit off the stage, so I must say that I actually started to enjoy the play a lot more.

Given that we got pretty cheap tickets I found the evening pretty good value, but I don't think I'd pay full price for this one.