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  • Rock-Paper-Camera

    Whilst looking for some android workplace tools for work today, I came across a review for a camera app called Paper Camera. Intrigued by the description, and always interested in different camera apps I jumped all in and downloaded the pay version.

    I’m aware for some photographers out there, anything other than the RAW image coming from a camera is a no go zone. I for one like effects, plug-ins etc. as part of a wide mix of tools in my shed. Sometimes one wants to capture a moment as it was, other times, perhaps as it felt, and other times again – just in a different way. Each has a place (perhaps a similar argument applies to why I shoot digital and film).

    I only had a chance to use it on my bike ride home, so wont go into any depth, but, its a fun little app that gives the user a host of different ‘paper medium’ live-view recreations of the photo you are taking. You can also record as well as snap pictures, which is pretty cool.

    Today’s image ‘Rock-Paper-Camera’ aside from resizing is straight from the camera (via Paper Camera). My subject, the local concrete makers. Situated on a busy corner, I never get the chance to stop for a photo when driving past regularly – that’s one bonus about being out on a cycle – one can stop with ease, and moving slower you take notice of more sites that one may miss when travelling by motor.

  • Welcome to My House

    I took a stroll into part of Unsworth Reserve today after work. I have passed it may times throughout the years, but never stopped. A great little bush, albeit easy to walk down a dead end track. On my return leg I dove down another dead end path and came across this seat in the middle of no where.

    How it got there I don’t know, but it made me think of the storybook ‘where the wild things are’, and various articles I have read about people who essentially abandon society and go bush (or desert, or island etc).

    Depending how one looks at it, its either a slightly creepy image, or a cool one, imagining oneself waking up in the forest and sitting down for a morning cuppa on your couch.

    In gimp I played around with levels and added a vignette lomo filter. The focus of the image was not quite right, but I liked the content, so ran with it anyway for today.

  • Storm Warning

    New Zealand has been hit with a mild weather bomb (depending which part of the country you are in) these last few days. Overall in Auckland we have only had a bit of high wind and low cloud. Yesterday this combined with a little light rain – nothing to get excited about.

    In between appointments I snapped this image down at Narrow Neck beach in Devonport using my Ricoh with a tweaked bleach bypass setting.

    Using Gimp, I cropped the aspect a little, removing some of the tree and more grey sky. I applied a light softening blur, slightly desaturated and lightly adjusting the hue. Lastly I added the rounded corners.

  • Wall of Colour

    As mentioned the over the weekend during one of my walks, I came across an old abandoned/condemned area which had had a lot of erosion and landslips. Some of the track had gone with it, but you could make out an alternate track that ‘adventure walkers’ had made, and I followed.

    Part of the fenced off area included a large reinforced concrete area, where today’s photo came from. Although there is a difference in my head between street art and graffiti, one thing for certain is its full of bright attracting colour. If it had not been for the colour, this area would have blended in with the bush.

    Shot on my Sony Nex 5N and the Sigma 2.8/30 lens. In Gimp I added black boarder and resized for the net.

  • Waiting for the Tide

    I headed out with an Olympus E-500, older model Four Thirds DSLR today with a lens of a 35mm equivalent of 140-600mm. Its been a while since I played with such a long focal length, and coupled with not being used to the E-500 had a mixed bag of success. I thought I had captured some great bird images, but upon getting home and looking at full screen, it look like I needed to up the iso to get the frozen images I was looking for. Never mind. I will borrow it again some time.

    Mixed success aside, and being several years discontinued now, I did enjoy the operation of the Olympus. I have owned in the past a few of their compact range for pocket shooters, but never one of their DSLR or Micro Four Third units. I think if I had not made some lens investment in my Nex, I would have looked at the likes of a EP-3 or E-M5. The sensor size is great for getting a big zoom.

    Today’s image ‘waiting for the tide’, after some cropping, was one of the ones I liked from today’s Olympus experiment.  As well as cropping I also pushed the contrast a few notches and applied a bit of sharpening.

    Back to a camera I am more familiar with tomorrow!