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  • Through Someones Vintage Eyes – Canary Islands and East Africa.

    Our journey continues with the adventurers from last ‘Someones Vintage Eyes’ and remains ‘around’ the African continent. I think this post is likely both a prequel and afterward of the last as we bounce between Canary Islands first (going by slide number) and then to East Africa. But I am taking this box by box and not all the slide numbers line up, so lets just stay a little in the dark!

    So here we go ‘Coming into the Harbour of Tenerife, Canary Islands’ The largest of Spains landings in the Islands. Blessed with ‘eternal Spring’, countless beaches and plenty of inland nature to boot. Im sure it looks a bit different now 60 odd years later!

    Our adventurers arrive in the harbour and set foot on land to walk off those weary sea legs. The city of Santa Cruz – Even today it has things like its church from the 1700’s – so some sights might not be so different to our adventurers then as it would be to us now!? We see Candelaria Square and waterfront walkways in their warm glory.

    In arrives the Brasil Star enroute to South America. The Brasil Star was a historic 10,716-ton cargo-passenger liner operated by the Blue Star Line in the mid-20th century. Built in 1947, she and her sister ships (Argentina Star, Uruguay Star, and Paraguay Star) primarily maintained a 1940s-1960s route between Europe and South America. Later in 1973 she was sold to a Japanese company and made her final journey from London to be demolished… Roughly within the decade of the adventurers trip – I wonder if they read about it.

    We then pop up in Lourenço Marques – Portuguese East Africa. Where? – ah yes – now days it is better known as Maputo, the vibrant capital city of Mozambique. Times change and much like the Brasil Star, Mozambique got independence in 1975 and the colonial name was put to rest. Putting aside many many political and ethical things, it must be quite strange growing up with all the colonial cities/countries and later in life seeing them change from/back to other places. To a smaller degree, I can see it with my own country as the indigenous people of the land have gone from a darker period of time and in my life time have seen a regrowth/rebirth of their mana.

    We leave ‘once was’ Portuguese East Africa, regaining our sea legs. I love the image of the Tug. Whilst we leave, our adventurers pass the TS Infante Dom Henrique – Portugal’s largest liner. Built in the 1950’s she was ultra modern with beautiful first class facilities. Unlike other stories above, she lasted a fair deal longer – until 2004, where her last journey took her to India for breaking. There is a decent amount of material about her to read over out there!

    An the last shot above, ties us back into the previous posting of the adventurers – ‘Early Morning View of Sugarloaf Mountain, CapeTown’

    A note on my opening and closing images.

    Opening: ‘City Street Tenerife, Canary Islands’ Those look like narrow streets to navigate by modern day standards!

    Closing (below): ‘Mr Bell (Tasmania), Self [our adventurer!!!], Dr Navotny’ – quite possibly Dr Novotny who’s early trials on diabetic and hypertensive subjects laid the groundwork for how eye specialists treat systemic diseases today!

    More next time!

  • Bits and Bobs

    Sometimes one just ends up with a few shots in an outing. Maybe the others were complete flops, or maybe you just didn’t shoot enough.

    You throw them all into a folder. They don’t really go together. They don’t really have a theme. Perhaps their only common attribute is they are a captured point of time.

    Today’s selection is mostly that. A little juxtaposition between the created (man made) world and nature, some complimentary palettes of colour. No real relationship.

    Both locations signal an outing, an escape, a venture looking for some adventure (or just a cool shot). An opportunity to return again with an idea washed through the mind and pressed into a vision.

    Or maybe they are just pictures.

  • Through Someones Vintage Eyes – South Africa.

    Ok. Here we go – some more ‘Through Someones Vintage Eyes’. Let’s set the scene (conveniently these slides had a few giveaways). Its 1962. The movie ‘Fate Takes a Hand’ has been released. Kine weekly magazine stated “The pilot story is adequate” (Im not sure that would fly now). Ed, John, Dave, Bob, Ian and other John enjoy some time on the Durban Beach, Golden Mile, South Africa. Our photographer takes a tour from Cape Town around the table mountain and districts – 46 miles by car, a round trip to/from Cape Province. They pass an old Dutch windmill – Now [Then] a restaurant. They pass the “play house” featuring the movie Kine has just reviewed – but don’t go in. For a moment, an image from another trip appears – Its Dave, John, Bob and Stewart emerging from the crankpot Tenerife, Canary Islands (perhaps a preview of future slides to come – I don’t sort these boxes when I get them haha)

    Back to S.A, we see the Rhodes Cottage – founder of the Kimberly Diamond Mines (though perhaps a pioneer at some stage, history generally frowns on Rhodes now for corruption, war, white supremacy…). Past the play house again (a better shot this time) and visiting an old Dutch home in Cape Province. Whilst in the area, our tourists visit the ‘oldest home in South Africa’ 30 miles from Cape Town – Gape Province. Your writer here suspects this was 1962 western definitions of the oldest home… “Built by Governor Simon Van Der Stel in 1685”! (again, a modern lens will remark technically built by enslaved peoples).

    Our travellers run into a rickshaw boy at Durban, Natal. Following this we have a view of Cape Town from Rhodes Memorial we can see what was the brand new Athlone Power Station – demolished in 2010. After a quick look at Cecil John Rhodes ‘Bust’ and a stroll through the memorial area we come across some “[removed old slur word] Watersiders arriving for work in Durban” (I do like the picture even if the wording is something of the past generations). A good sleep and early wakeup see us catching the early morning view from the harbour of Lions Head.

    Rounding up the trip (or this box of it???) we land in the city square in Durban. No doubt it has changed a bit since then! Technically this is also the area of our opening image above.

    Some beautiful scenery. Some fantastic old buildings – but also a reminder of a darker history around how different people are treated differently.

    I’ll close us out back with the wilderness – again that drive around the coast of table mountain.

    More slides to come another time!

  • Reflections on my City

    Sometimes when you stroll around with film you run out… but it’s not time to finish. It’s been a little while since I last used my phone creatively to take photos – which is funny really as in good light, mobile phones really do capture all one needs for ‘normal’ life use. This said, I was not out looking for standard snap shots on my walk around Auckland’s CBD – I was looking at reflections, glare and scenes through multiple windows that all blend and meld into an image you need to look a little longer at to understand what is happening in the overload of ‘stuff’.

    Back when I was in my final year of school I did a lot of double and triple exposures (on film) for my university entrance/Bursary year. Back then (Ive posted some images way back in the blog) I did quite well at assessment level. The blend of images to pull the viewer in and perhaps create a story interested me. Today’s images are not the same, but do create a sense of something. Converted to near monochrome removes the colour definitions of inside and outside and the scene blends more into one.

    I love how the reflections on glass give a real dualistic image – just like the double and triple exposures I once made. It’s a fun and creative way to look at a space you walk through often in a new light. So often I am out with my CPL doing all I can to remove reflections, see through windows or blacken them from glare. A whole new visual world opens up when you welcome and hunt them out!

    That was fun. What a stroke of luck I ran out of film on the walk!

  • Pinhole Test 1

    It’s been a little while since I last shot any pinhole cameras. I’ve been eyeing up several on the market. Pinhole cameras are quite literally a light tight box with a hole. So I (yet again) made my own panoramic 35mm camera. Currently I don’t have the right equipment to fully scan the full width of the images it produces, but today was a first roll trial just to make sure it works anyway.

    Shot on Lucky 100, the camera in theory has a f=stop of 167. Using Pinhole assist, I got dome images, but they are on the thin side negative wise. I can’t be 100% on the film or my 1:100 stand developing water was a bit too cold (it is winter), but I think I will both lean towards a bit longer exposure and perhaps try a couple of meters. This said, I got images!

    Ive said it before, as many others have. There is something special about pinhole images. You are less catching a moment in time than a period of time in one frame. Motion blurs, cars and people can disappear completely. The concept looking at one of the images above, that a ray of light bounced off a section of the sky tower ~2km away and fell into my 0.15mm hole into a dark box is still kind of amazing – even though that just how it all works.

    So thats test 1. In test 2 I will share some images of the camera itself as well as another selection of images. I’m also working on a adapted 120film camera to Pinhole at the same time, so things might roll in out of order… time will tell.

    Over the 6 minutes this was exposed, the flowers were waving in the wind – its amazing how they clearly settled back into position between each breeze!