Menzel and I took a trip up to Monarto Zoo this weekend. It was somewhere I’d always meant to go and never gotten around to…now I feel like an idiot for putting it off for so long, because it was awesome!

When we got to the wallaby enclosure (sorry, “Wallaby Gorge”) I was already excited at the thought of being able to get so close to these little guys!

..but I had no idea they were THIS brave! They’re so used to people that they hopped right up and started nosing at our bags. I just about exploded with the cuteness.

We went on a bus tour around the park, and when we got to this section the tour lady joked that instead of breeding like rabbits, the staff at the zoo say “breed like giraffes”. Needless to say, there were lots of cute ickle giraffes wandering about with their mamas on their storky legs :D

OMG LIONCUB SPRAWL! Again with cuteness explosion! These ‘little’ guys are 9 months old. (I think I actually squeed out loud when they start rolling around like this.)

After this, I came home and breakfast for dinner – a bacon and egg roll – so all in all, definitely a winner day!

First, my news: I’m going to Japan again!! Jetstar had a sale last month, and we got return tickets from Sydney to Osaka for just over $500! It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so we went ahead and booked that night…luckily work approved my leave, so Menzel and I will be there for a little over two weeks at the end of October. (I’m resigned to never travelling overseas in Summer.) Not only am I so excited to be going back to Japan again, but I can’t wait to show Menzel what an amazing place it is. We’re spending a week in Osaka and another in Tokyo and I’m totally psyched…last time I saw so many things that he would have loved and I can’t wait to share this experience with him this time. SUPER EXCITED!

Also, the other reason I’m so excited is last time I’d only just gotten my first dslr and I was still on a really steep learning curve. This time I’m a lot more confident in my phtography so I’m really keen to have another crack at Japan through the lens.

Lately all I seem to do in Photoshop is correct converging verticals, colour-correct interiors and drop in blue skies behind houses that were shot on overcast days!

 So tonight I tried to give my rusty people skills a workout. Below we have my lovely model Jess, straight out of the camera.

Hmm. Looked better on the camera’s LCD. Let’s try a bit of post-processing…

(Skin was retouched lightly and brightened up with levels; eyes had a little selective level brightening and then burning, and then a slight touch up to make the colour pop; the background saturation was increased to make the colours a bit more vivid.)

 I had a play with the Kubota Pro Retouch action, and it worked pretty well while maintaing a nice natural look. Still, that said, I also tried another (free) DIY technique the other day which worked equally well AND didn’t send my computer grinding to a halt while Photoshop processed it so I’m not completely convinced it’s worth the money.