I love photography, and if you’ve ever read my Tattoos and Storytelling post, you’ll know I feel that visual art is often a different way of telling a story.

I’ve never been in the position to be able to dedicate much time, effort or money to learning as much about photography as I would like and I recently, after an incredible amount of umming and aahing, purchased a Canon 600D dSLR with two lenses. I love it. It’s amazing the shots I have been able to get and every time I pull it out I try something a little different and get a new effect or learn something I didn’t know before. I am still learning but I’m pretty happy with how I’m going so far.

For something different this Friday, I thought I would share two of the pictures I am particularly pleased with and share the stories behind them, which hopefully you can kind of see in the pictures. One of them I even entered into the local Show’s photography competition. I doubt I will get anywhere with it, but it was serendipitious timing that I remembered about the competition (which I love checking out each year) and a $2 entry so I thought it wouldn’t hurt to give it a go.

Takhisis – The Ninja Lap Cat

This is Takhisis – so named for the Dragonlance Goddess of Evil as she was a nutter of a kitty and rules our house with an Iron Meow (seriously, she has a godawful meow that sounds exactly like a crying child). She very much considers herself the Queen and loves to give us the stink-eye when we don’t do what she wants. All that aside, she is a beautiful loving little girl and loves her cuddles, but she’s a stealth ninja at getting them. She lithely springs onto the arm of the couch so delicately you barely even notice her, waits until you are distracted and then climbs onto your lap, paw by paw, ever so gently before curling up. Next thing you know you try and get out of the chair andshe’s there! How did that happen?

The Tooth Fairy (because I know he hates it when I say that)

This is my dad, hard at work making some new teeth for someone. You may remember me saying something about that in this post. It’s not really a job that is in the minds of most people is it? You say “false teeth” and you just think of old people pulling them out of their mouths and scaring kids, you don’t really think about how much work actually goes into making them for someone. Obviously everyone has a different mouth so each set of false teeth or other orthodontic appliance (of which he makes them all) has to be specifically crafted to fit that person so it doesn’t cause them pain. It’s really fiddly. I couldn’t do it, I hate fiddly things and have absolutely no patience.

I really like this picture. Everyone I’ve showed it to outside my family has actually been grossed out by it for some reason. I find that both incredibly weird and intriguing at the same time.

What do you think?