the hat tells the story

I had the BEST picnic day with some of my good friends yesterday! Lovely weather, yummy food, great company, the kind of days that you never want to end and makes you feel grateful for the people around you. Since I haven't had the time to properly go through the hundreds of photos yet, these few photos will have to do for now, and I'll let our hats give you a glimpse of our day. What do our hats say about us?

♥ Top: my wide navy blue hat (thrifted from Savers a couple of weeks ago for under $6!) and my chocolate winnings from a Chocolate Monopoly game we played (yes, edible Monopoly. Yum).
♥ Second: a friend's fedora hat and his ukulele, which he played for us. It's so cool, and makes me wish I wasn't tone deaf so I could play a musical instrument too.
♥ Third: another friend's cute straw hat from Sportsgirl. She did something sweet with the flowers, but I'll wait until Much Love Monday to show you (I just gave you a hint there, huh?).
♥ Last: mine again, just flipped onto the other side. You didn't think I wouldn't bring my trusted Superheadz film camera, did you?

More photos another time!

peek a blue

dress - vintage from RetroStar sale; umbrella - Daiso

Photos from last weekend when a friend and I stopped by the Japanese garden at Melbourne Zoo. Unfortunately the heavy rain and wind stopped by with us, but un-unfortunately we were already sheltered in the gazebo when it started to pour, so we managed to stay mostly dry. It actually felt quite peaceful to be in the middle of a beautifully tranquil garden, sitting inside a spacious Japanese gazebo, and in comparison hearing and watching the mad pouring rain all around us. I meant to take better photos of said rain and gazebo (not just the pillars!), but my camera batteries died by then. Ah, well at least I got these shots just before the rain started to get heavy, although it did get tricky once the wind picked up (excuse my screwed up face)!

Also, I had to show off this photo of our cool turtle friend from the garden! This cutie kept swimming towards us and looked up at us, and was definitely not camera shy.

Much Love Monday

camera: Yellow Piece Vivitar ultra Wide Lens Camera superheadz, film: Lucky black and white film, SHD 100 

LOVE: looking forward to this week, which will consist of...
♥ Enjoying my boxing day purchases (oh yes, I braved the sales!)
♥ Having half the week away from work
♥ Picnic with friends tomorrow
♥ Spending time with my brother who is coming over from Japan (bearing kawaii gifts!)
♥ Saying hello to 2011
♥ Trying to clear out stock from the Dahliaville shop before the new year. Enter code GOODBYE2010 and get 50% off any purchase. I'll also throw in a free gift (you'll love it!) if you buy more than 1 item.

What are you loving?
To join in Much Love Monday, simply do a blog post that includes a picture of a heart and mention something you love. Then leave a link of your blog post in the Linky space below, and put it in the thing you love as the title. A link back would be much appreciated.  
If you cannot see the Linky, please leave your link in the comments.
You can also add your Much Love Monday photos to the Much Love Monday Flickr pool.

miss potter...

... is what I'll be watching on telly tonight! Love that movie.

"We cannot stay home all our lives. 
We must present ourselves to the world, 
and we must look upon it as an adventure!"

- Miss Potter

Happy holidays friends!!

nice day for a walk

 Camera: compact 35mm point and shoot; Film: Kodak Colorplus 200

Some slightly older photos from Spring, which is what the weather in Melbourne actually still feels like nowadays. Summer is certainly taking it's time to get here. Oh, and yes, I'm aware that all of the top left corners are dark. The lens didn't fully open, I guess.

winter in film - ♥ photos and guest post by Emily

Hello Much Love readers! This is Emily from the blog Resplendent Tranquility. Back in September, Anna was kind enough to fill in on my blog while I was away and I jumped at the opportunity to return the favor!

I'm so happy that blogging has allowed me to build a friendship with Anna. It's really quite amazing to think how without the internet and its various tools I'd be here and she'd be there unbeknown to one another. Quite often through blog posts, e-mails, and tweets on Twitter we discover more and more that we have in common. One of those commonalities is a shared appreciation for film photography. I always get excited when Anna shares new photos on her blog. She has a great eye for detail and is a tremendous source of inspiration. We've even been swapping photographs back and forth through the mail for nearly a year. Each month we decide on a theme or concept and then send each other our interpretations in photo form.

Today, December 21, 2010, marks the first day of winter up here in the Northern Hemisphere. Brr! To celebrate, if you will, I decided to share some winter film photos I took this past winter. I'm going to apologize right away for the white patch in the upper left corner of each photo. I always ask to have my film put on a disc when I drop it off for developing and this particular time around something funny happened during that process. Try not to let it deter you! I hope you enjoy them :)


This photo was taking during a snow fall. See the snow flakes?

These two photos were taken through a window screen to add texture.

For some reason this deer weathervane was affixed to our porch railing and not the roof, but either way I thought it made for a pretty photo!

Delicate, intricate frost.

Camera: Nikon FM 10
Film: Fujicolor Superia X-tra 400

Thank you for having look after your blog, Anna! It's been fun!

much love monday [library]

Love: the Melbourne city library. Outside of which is where I found this heart.
I've been going to the library pretty often, especially because my reading habit has increased significantly since I've had to commute for at least 3 hours every day (it's surprising how much reading can be done on a train). Check out my sidebar, under "reading", to see some of the books I've borrowed and have been getting into lately.

What are you loving?
To join in Much Love Monday, simply do a blog post that includes a picture of a heart and mention something you love. Then leave a link of your blog post in the Linky space below, and put it in the thing you love as the title. A link back would be much appreciated.  
If you cannot see the Linky, please leave your link in the comments.
You can also add your Much Love Monday photos to the Much Love Monday Flickr pool.

shadow shot sunday [black and white film]

camera: Yellow Piece Vivitar ultra Wide Lens Camera superheadz, film: Lucky black and white film, SHD 100

I've been playing around with black and white film photography for the first time, and thought I'd share some of my first photos today for Shadow Shot Sunday. I thought the absence of colour helps emphasise the shadows even more, don't you think? Hopefully I'll have more to share in the coming days or weeks.

Go to Hey Harriet to see more shadow shots today.

P.S. the winner of the truth.be.told giveaway is #3, blue eyed night owl. Congratulations!

P.P.S. thank you to all my guest bloggers for their great posts these past few days! I've been overwhelmed with other things going on in my life lately, and have honestly been a bit uninspired blogging-wise, so I really appreciate the help of my guest bloggers. I have another special guest blogger coming up next week, and I'm sure you'll love what she has in store for you (especially if you love film photography too)!

let me be something

photo via flickr by mary_robinson

"let me be something every minute of every hour of my life. 

Let me be gay; let me be sad. Let me be cold; let me be warm. 

Let me be hungry…have too much to eat. Let me be ragged or well dressed. 

Let me be sincere— be deceitful. Let me be truthful; let me be a liar. 

Let me be honorable and let me sin. 

Only let me be something every blessed minute. 

And when I sleep, let me dream all the time so that not one little piece of living is ever lost.”

— Betty Smith,
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (P.S.)

vintage camera inspiration - ♥ guest post by Kellie

Hi everyone! I'm Kellie from 74 Lime Lane and I'm thrilled to be able to share here in Anna's space today.

Like Anna, I'm a bit of a fan of cameras and all things photography. And one thing I love is old cameras and, especially, photos of old cameras. I have a budding little collection of vintage cameras ~ including brownies, polaroid and instamatics. Film is hard to come by so most of them are for display only. I do love the whirr of the winder on an old film camera. I don't know what it is about vintage cameras. The boxy style, the simple aesthetic, the stories they could tell ~ they make excellent photographic subjects. Whenever I am stuck for some inspiration, I take out one of my vintage cameras and start clicking away.You can't go wrong.

So today, some classic beauties from my flickr favourites:

{wild olive}

{Irene Suchocki}

{sfgirlbybay}

{ethanollie}

{gabrielle kai}

I don't know about you, but I'm feeling a little inspired now. I'm off to dust off the vintage brownie and take some photos. Happy snapping.

double exposures - ♥ photos and guest post by Rhianne

Hi Much Love readers! It's Rhianne here from For the easily distracted... I'm so happy to be writing a guest post for Anna - she really is as lovely as her blog.

I've been a fan of Anna's photography for a long time now and I was so excited when I saw she won her holga. I too adore my holga, so I'm here to share some of my favourite double exposures I've taken with it.

My favourite thing about my double exposures is that they are normally spontaneous, or sometimes even a complete accident where I forget to roll on the film... You can never predict how they turn out and it's that excitement and element of the unknown that I love about film.

I know Anna loves double exposures and I hope you've enjoyed these too.

Rhianne