Spy Journal 3.0 Filtering the web for you

I don’t know why I seem to write massive link posts lately – maybe because i have been very busy with my three major priorities, family, work and photography. However this is a priority as well, so I need to allocate some time to write soon. In the mean time I am going to clear my browser of the tabs that are open there.

Here goes – and have a great weekend. Oh – and this photo was my favourite of the week. I took it in low light, no flash using the 70-200 2.8 IS L Lens.

Exposure 1/128, Aperture f2.8, focal length 170mm, ISO 2000

Photography Links

• A Beginner’s Guide to Flickr by Elizabeth Halford – I love flickr also – an awesome tool
• Helping Your Client Prepare for Their Shoot – Dress to Match the Sofa? by Elizabeth Halford
• 5 Tips for Photographing Children – some great tips here
• 3 Affordable E-books to Improve Your Photography by Darren Rowse – thinking of getting these
• How to Capture Motion Blur in Photography by Darren Rowse - learning this technique is going to be fun
• Jasmine Star – an awesome wedding photography blog
• I love this photo gypsy meets gangster
• Jakob Aungiers – this is an amazing portfolio

Back to work and back to an inbox full of things to do. I have spent a massive amount of time this last week working – the sailing holiday is now a dim and distant memory!

First some riding news. I got my bike back with the rear shock rebuilt (under warranty) and took it for a test ride with the MTB ride group yesterday. It held up just fine and the ride was an epic one - if a little long for my liking. The Saturday MTB group is back – meeting at the Wolves Bike Den every Saturday at midday for an epic ride like this. All ages and experiences welcome.

Map and terrain detail on bikely of the Ewen Maddock Dam Ride Click the pictures for more detail.

The smell of deep heat, sweaty shoes and socks, the sound of whistles blowing, balls bouncing and shoes squeaking assault the senses as you walk into the stadium. Visually there is activity everywhere. Three courts with players moving, bench officials waving and gesturing with referees and small kids bouncing balls in corners. Photographers crouch in corners with long lenses and stadium officials lean against the walls with arms crossed surveying it all.

We walked into this environment as a team for the first time 5 days ago. We is, Will 51, Linda 41, Myself 41, Amanda 20, Stephen 20, Jemimah 19, Nathan 16, Thomas 16, Esther 16, Kahlila 15. These are the kids I have been coaching for 2 and a half years and Linda and Will joined in. We decided to enter the 2009 QLD Masters tournament in a social mixed division. Unfortunately no one else did so were grouped into a 45+ Mens division, playing teams who have represented Australia at the World Masters and also teams from interstate.

We had an absolute blast playing these giants. Every team had players well over the 6 foot mark and myself and Nathan are the tallest in our team at 6 foot even. Still we played our best and learned a lot. the other teams were happy to offer advice and assistance. Our best game we finished within 14 points of the other team. Our most fun game was the team that gave us 40 points head start and made it a very close finish – we ended up losing by 3 points. One of these games incidentally was played without Stephen and Will who had taken injuries on the first day. We played 6 games altogether.

I also took a lot of photos, and Jude and Esther (Nathan’s sister) photographed our games for us. Linda is  missing from the second team photo because she went for a shower early  at the end of the last game. Some of my best photos are below. All the photos can be found on my flickr account.

August 30 saw Judith and Jadeen compete with another 47,000 odd runners in the annual Bridge to Brisbane charity fun run. Jude and Jadeen competed in the 5km run finishing in the first 2000 odd runners I think. Official results will come later.

I took a bunch of photos – 942 to be precise – these are posted up on my flickr account with the bridgetobrisbane tag. Here is the public listing of photos with the bridgetobrisbane tag

Here are some of the best / funniest ones I took. Number 32531 was the winning woman. Judith was number 40065 and I didn’t see Jadeen bolt past me in the crowd so I didn’t get a photo of her.