Unexpected Gift

Yesterday (Christmas Eve) at 3pm, I received a package that I thought would not arrive within the week. A very unexpected but delightful christmas gift!

It is a photobook of my recent trip to Australia! I started working on this project earlier this month and I surprised myself when I finished it in a record 2 weeks. It shows how you can get many things done when you are as disciplined as I am...

Ok so I lied. I was supposed to have the project wrapped up by October. October turned into November and very predictably November faded away faster than Rafa Benitez managed to lose his job at Inter. I decided that I was not going to let December slip away too. So I clicked and tapped away at the keyboards as much as I could. I devoted a couple of hours each day to sort through the photos that I've carefully chosen to ignore for the past few months (By the way, ask any photographer this and he will tell you that one of the worst things about photography is what comes after you're back from a long trip or a wedding. I don't think I've met anyone who enjoys sifting through gigabytes of pictures on his computer).

When I uploaded the finished files last weekend, I read the FAQ and noticed them mentioning that due to the festive season it may take longer than usual to process and deliver. To their credit they delivered on time. I must say that I'm very pleased with the finished product as well.

Since some of my favorite shots from the trip had been taken with a film camera, I had to include them in the album. I was a bit worried about the quality of the lab scanned images since a lot of them were averaging around 1MB but they turned out great. Even the cross processed ones.

Four of the pics you see in here are taken with the Olympus Trip 35 and FED 5C film cameras

If anything, seeing our finished album has made me want to go and travel even more in the coming years. Ok, I said ours but If you flip through the book, its more like my wife's album. Since I'm the one behind the camera most of the time, I can count the number of times I've appeared on the album with the fingers on one hand. We'll need to work on that for our next adventure.

All in all, its been an eventful year for us and I hope its been one for you all as well. We wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2011!