My Old Girl :')

The next lot of photos are of a very important character in my life.

Amber is my fifteen year old  Yellow Labrador who I have had in my life since I was twelve. She is getting to the end of her days now and I wanted to get some nice photos to remember her by. So on my latest visit to mum and dad's for Christmas 2012, on Boxing Day, I got them.

A few are just before we gave her a bath and she was just enjoying the afternoon sun and the rest are of her enjoying a bone after a good bath. Our labs have always loved their bones and Amber is at about her happiest in these pics. :)

She's a beautiful old girl and will always hold a very special place in my heart and everyone else's who knew her. Love you forever my Ambi. <3 xoxo :')




The rest of the shoot can be seen on my Flicker account here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/r_hinricks/

2012 Ready to Run Sale

The Gold Coast Magic Millions hold an annual "ready to run" sale which has been held for the last few years.

It involves trainers getting their young hopefuls ready for a 200 metre gallop up the straight of the Gold Coast 'velvet' track to show off their talent to potential buyers. These babies have just turned two by the time they have their big hit out and are ready to be taken to the next level in their racing careers.

Here are some promotional photos that I took at this years show case:

Quite the character, this little chap. He was really enjoying the entertainment that his tongue gave him. :)

And here is the beautiful backdrop to the Gold Coast Turf Club:

More of my own photos along with others can be seen at the Magic Millions Facebook Page

http://www.facebook.com/magicmillions?fref=ts

Peta Evans-Taylor and Taxi Ride

Ok. So here is the low down on the great band that played at the Mount Isa Mailman Express:

They hail from Melbourne and the lead singer's name is Peta Evans-Taylor while her backing band are called Taxi Ride.

They were great, so if you know them, give them a shout out from me, if you get the chance to watch them play, enjoy. :)

Here are a couple more cool pics:

The Band

I am working on finding the name of this talented Mount Isan group as we speak. Well, you read.

I was recently in Mount Isa to document the monumental occasion that is the Mailman Express, a race held annually, honouring the late, great Wally Mailman. The race, for non-thoroughbred horses, is a 200m gallop up the straight of the Mount Isa race track at Buchanan Park and is one of the main events of the famous Mount Isa Rodeo weekend.

While taking my photos of the horses (thoroughbred race horses and non-thoroughbred rodeo horses), competitors and the locals enjoying the fun loving atmosphere, I noticed that the band playing to the crowd were incredibly good. I asked the secretary of the race club if she knew who they were, but she said she hadn't had a hand in hiring them and only knew that they were local to the city.

Here are some photos that I took of them, the lights from the stage created a very cool and interesting effect, making them look like I have done some hard editing, when in truth, all I have done is added a little sharpening, and done some basic tweaking of the exposure and fill in Adobe Lightroom. Enjoy;

Timmy's Good Work

Last year, we had a big makeover done on our house (rather, my fiance's parents' house), but we were pretty much given free reign on colour and decor, within the budget, of course. While we are still going, we are very close to the end. The first thing on the list for a makeover was a new paint-job along with a new colour scheme.

Lach wanted to have bold colours, that would not show a lot of dirt and marks, as there are quite a few of us sharing the house. So he chose dark blue as the main colour with white trim. I have to admit that I was sceptical to start with, but the more I thought about it, the more I warmed to the idea. I did have one request, though, that we have feature walls throughout the major rooms.

These are some quick pics that I took of the final result:

As you can see, we did choose to paint the smaller rooms like the small bedrooms, bathrooms and laundry a lighter blue, as the dark blue would have been very crowding and confining in a small area.

While I did take these photos on my good camera, I only adjusted the Exposure, added some Fill Light, played with the Tone Curve and turned up the Sharpening, all in Adobe Lightroom 3. 

I suppose I should mention who did the painting. Downstairs was done by a workmate of one of our housemates, Mark, who is actually a builder. We only had him do the downstairs area because he had another full-time job, which meant it took a few months to get that part done. As it turns out, my cousin is married to a professional painter, who we neglected to even think of when we first started the painting, our problem. But when we did need a new painter, Tim was who we turned to. He gave us a quote, on the upstairs interior to start with, which was very reasonable, so we hired him. Him and his workmate took about two weeks all up to paint the upstairs interior completely, a vast improvement on the three or four months that was the downstairs area, and the finish was impeccable. Needless to say, we got him to do the exterior of the house too, using the same basic colour scheme. The weather was a bit of a pain, but Tim kept an eye on the radar and let us know whenever they would be unable to work because of the rain. All in all, they were very professional and did a great job, as you can see.

If you want any work done in the Brisbane area, here is the link to Tim Hodge's website:
http://www.voguepp.com.au/painter/

The Cheeseburger Challenge!

Whew!

Well, again, I apologise for my lack of posts of late, but here is the latest:

Above are the photos that resulted from the 10 cheeseburger challenge that my fiance's brother, Phil, his girlfriend and my maid of honour, Emma and myself decided to undertake. 

Phil heard about the challenge and decided that it sounded easy, so he made up his mind to have a go. Emma and I thought that 10 cheeseburgers would be way too much for us to fit into our svelte little tummies, so we went with the 6 burger challenge. Do-able, right?......

Well, we went to the all night Macca's at Cannon Hill and ordered our 22 cheeseburgers (which cost just over $50, meaning that Phil had to type in his pin number for his credit card).

We drove home as quickly, while still being within the speed limit, as we could, unpacked our burgers onto the new white table and found that they had given us an extra 2 burgers, turning Emma and my challenge into 7 burgers to swallow...... They didn't look incredibly impressive, all set out on the table. They are a fairly small morsel. But as we got about 3 burgers in, we started to slow down, myself significantly. I pushed through another 2, but 5 was my limit. Emma was a touch stronger, downing 5 and a half, while Phil was defeated at 7!

In the end, it took us just over 16 minutes to learn that we were all too wussy to manage to overcome the challenge that we had set ourselves, and I felt fine while Emma and Phil were whining about their sore stomaches for about an hour after the final mouthful was swallowed. But we did have a good laugh.

The Four Week Body Project

My fiance, Lach and I recently acquired the book titled 'The Four Week Body' by Timothy Ferris. As a result of reading it, we decided to follow the exercise and eating plans, as well as get DXA scans done to measure our fat mass, muscle mass and bone mass accurately. At the end of our experiment, we will get the scans redone to compare, as well as before and after photos.

Here are my before photos, completely untouched and taken with my iPhone, you can even see the big dent and scar on the side of my leg from when I broke it:

The following three images are the results of my DXA scan on the 15th February, 2012, my weight was 53.2kg at 157.5cm tall, age 26 years old:

Above is the bone scan, normal mineral levels (bone density) are between -1 and +1, my levels are at +1.5 which is extremely good.

The yellow area in the above image represents fat, red is muscle and blue is bone, as you can see, I store the majority of my body fat on my bum and thighs. My BMI (Body Mass Index) is 21.4, well inside the normal range and my total body fat percentage is also 21.4%, 21-33% is recommended for women between the age of 20-39 years old. However, my FMI (Fat Mass Index) is 4.57 which is a mild fat deficit, normal is 5-9. Unlike the BMI, FMI is not affected by lean tissue and measures fat/height alone.


                                              

This last image shows a summary of the scan, it also shows the percentage of fat that accumulates on the sub-region (stomach), the fat that accumulates in this area is normally the more dangerous type, as it surrounds the vital organs. My sub-region fat percentage is 9.6%, which is slightly below normal, but not dangerously low.

Because I don't have a lot of fat that I want to lose, I am only following the fat loss diet fairly loosely, Lach on the other hand, is following it very strictly so as to become as toned and lean as possible in as short a time as possible. Here are his before photos, sexy socks and all:

The following three images are Lach's results from the DXA scan on the 15th February, 2012, his weight was 70.1kg at 167 cm tall, age 26 years old:

Above, the result of Lach's scan shows that his bone density is at -0.9 which is only just in the safe range, a good way to improve this is healthy diet as well as weight resistance training.

Lach also stores the majority of his body fat on his bum. His BMI is 25.1, just over the normal range, but his total body fat percentage is 16.4%, 8-20% is recommended for men between the age of 20-39 years old. While his FMI is 4.1, the normal range for men being 3 to 6. Due to child bearing and other functions related to hormones, women require three times as much essential fat as men.

                                              

The sub-region fat on Lach at the time of this scan was 13%, which is normal.

When we can see strong visible results, we will head back for another scan and post the final results. Until then, I hope that you have found this interesting and informative.