• By the Sea

    Some heavy digital pushing of today’s image ‘Dark by the Sea’. Mucking around in Gimp, I was pushing the sky to get some dynamics, and then the foreground to get the cliff sides. I think the result, although requiring more editing effort on my part where the foreground and background collide, gives quite a dynamic surreal feeling to it.

    With the weekend here (at last!) I am hoping I will get some time to develop my film – and start a new one. I also took delivery of a budget 2.2x telephoto lens to try on the Nex. I wanted to see how acceptable a result it would give me on my 210mm leans, as well as the possibilities it may offer when I am travelling light with the standard kit lens.

  • Up and Down

    Not much time for written content today sorry. ‘Up and Down’, shot at the Auckland Airport on the Ricoh GRD IV. Using Gimp I converted to B&W, adjusted contrast and sharpness and resized to post.

    I have finally finished my film in the Pentax with the music festival on Monday – just need to find the time to develop it now!

  • The Long Walk

    Being a fan of sci-fi of all sorts, I recently caught the latest Judge Dredd movie, and re-watched the earlier Stallone version. As a teen, I remember reading episodes of Judge Dredd in 2000AD comic. On one such storyline, and in the Stallone movie, the Judge takes ‘The Long Walk’ out into the wild lands, bringing the law to the lawless. It is portrayed as a hostile environment, and one they are not expected to return from.

    Using that as a concept today, I imagined stepping out into the sun swept wild lands, the sun being too harsh to allow the eyes to see into the distance, a land of nothingness.

    Shooting with my Ricoh, I captured the image in cross processed and then converted to B&W in Gimp. removing the land in the horizon and pushing the contrast, I then gave it a colour tint.

  • Construct zone

    I am generally one of those people who get a sense of relaxation and re-energizing from nature. Walking through the forest or bush, or along the beach the air feels cleaner, we have less (not none) forms of modern technology buzzing around us. Its a unloaded simpler feeling.

    However, I also enjoy exploring ‘things in change’ – areas under construction (as well as areas returning to nature). Sundays walk took me to a new development area in Long Bay – the northern point of the North Shore. Here open fields and scrub has made way for carefully planned and measured sections for residential use. There is one road in/out with a monolith of a structure announcing you have entered this likely prestigious area. Today’s image was taken at the edge of this boundary, just before entering the area. For me, the title Construct Zone both signifies an area in change, literally being constructed, but also the mental symbolics of construct being the putting together of planning and theory to create a new suburb and the people within it.

    Shot on the Sony Nex with the Sigma 30mm lens, I only slightly adjusted the levels before resizing to publish.

    I’m also working my way through the 35mm film I took to the music festival yesterday. I initially thought I had a 24/27 shot film, but it must be a 36, so not too much longer until I can develop!

  • image

    A quick post for today as I return from the Laneway music festival. Bat  For Lashes put on a great show, concluding my day in the sun.

    Shot on the galaxy s2 and edited in afterfocus.