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  • The Old Engine

    Fire engine

    Motat is full of old machinery – from stem tractors to 70’s cars. Whilst all was of interest to me,one of the more interesting sections was of the old New Zealand Fire Service. Here, in a makeshift station they displayed several vehicles of old, as well as various fire fighting equipment, now long out of date. Today’s photo is of an engine that served Auckland’s CBD, and later in life with the volunteers at Devonport station. For a service vehicle, its in beautiful condition & quite a stand-out with its chrome hood.

    Editing wise, in Gimp, I slightly cropped, added a vignette and applied the National Geographic plug-in. Following this I removed several of the plug-in layers.

    Image was shot on the Sony Nex.

  • Western Springs Wildlife

    Western Springs

    A bit of a wildlife shot from my recent visit to Western Springs. After feeding the mother swan some chips and making it semi-comfortable with me around its cygnets, I got down to their level and snapped off a few shots. In this particular one I also captured some greedy gulls coming in for a landing also.

    In Gimp I added a custom version of the National Geographic plug-in filter, cropped, resized and added the top/bottom bars.

  • Up the River

    Up the River

    Prior to visiting Motat with work on Friday, I had some lunch at Western Springs – the large freshwater springs next to the venue. Once upon a time Western Springs was the primary water source for much of Auckland (Like the Pumphouse on the North Shore I have written about). Now days it makes a popular place for a walk, run or to have a picnic and feed the ducks.

    Surrounding part of the springs is a little river where the water flows. Armed with my Sony Nex 5N and 210mm lens I got as central to and low as I could and shot into the distance.

    In post processing using Gimp I slightly cropped and straightened, added a cross-processed filter, pushed the contrast a notch and desaturated by several points.

  • Planes of Past

    image

    A mobile post for today. As part of a team day with work, we visited Motat 2 – the aeroplane and train museum. For most of the afternoon I used my Sony, of which I will post some images in the next few days. For this shot however I used my samsung galaxy s2.

    The image itself is of the entry to the new indoor section of Motat 2- prior to this, a number of the planes were outside. Some of the big ones still are, and awaiting desperate restoration. Its nothing like some of the large plane wreckers/graveyards, but a nice collection for our part of the world.

    Editing wise, I used the app Afterfocus. In this I cropped the aspect, added a vintage style filter and some vignetting.

  • Out to Sea

    A busy day today, so one from recent archives. Shot at one of our local beaches on the Sony Nex and Sigma 30mm lens.

    In Gimp I adjusted the colour levels and added simulated film grain.

    Tomorrow afternoon work has a bit of a team afternoon/outing, so all going well I will have something to show a little different than usual…all going well.