MikeHawkey.com

photos and other things…

recent posts

about

  • Sky, Earth and Sea

    Today is the first day in some time that I have be dissatisfied with all the shots I took when out on a walk. I thinks its something that happens to all of us at times. I had taken out an older digital camera, and with the light being a bit challenging, it struggled to get focus on some of the more interesting shots I threw at it. Coming home I selected about five for post editing, but just couldn’t get any to work.

    Feeling a bit stuck, I pulled out a shot I took earlier in the week of Motutapu Island. Cropping heavily and pushing contrast and saturations beyond usual limits, I have tried to give the image more of a ‘painted feel’ than a photographed image. I’m not sure if I pulled it off, but tomorrow is another day and will bring us another image!

  • Land Ahoy

    Making the conscious decision to take the Nex and Jupiter 8 out for some after work shooting today, I found myself struggling to get anywhere before dusk set in (I thought I had said summer was coming). Coupled with a blistery cold wind and temperature I cast my eye out to the ocean, which looked/felt to have a storm brewing.

    Snapping some images I tried to capture the cold isolation the ocean can arouse, and imagined the relief of early discoverers as they sighted land in the distance.

    Taken from North Head, on the North Shore of Auckland – its a great spot (but dress warm on cold windy days) to get a panoramic view around Auckland and its harbour.

  • The Epiphytes

    The other week I took a journey through Smiths Bush. To one side of Smiths Bush is a main highway, and on the other side of that is what I assume is the far ‘lost section’ of the bush. A very short 5min walk from one end to the other, its mostly used by school kids as a short cut from their school to the nearby road I suspect.  In saying that, it was well kept and void of any rubbish and litter some might expect to come from a bush area so close to a school.

    Being such a short walk I started scanning a little closer to the ground and trees, looking for something to get a shot of. Like the larger Smiths Bush, the trees were full of an array of epiphytes- mostly way up in the canopy, well out of detailed reach of the 28mm Ricoh. Across the trunks of several trees however sprung a collection of smaller leaved plants. I framed them up and caught today’s image.

    Using Gimp, I then pushed the contrast and saturation up one level each and resized for the web.

  • The Refinery

    “The Refinery’ comes from yesterdays walk at the Chelsea Park – which belonged to the Chelsea Sugar works. Built in 1884, and added to later on, CSW is our biggest supplier of sugar. As well as being a bright orange in colour, I was drawn to mishmash of buildings, knowing that each serves a purpose in the production run.

    Playing around in Gimp, I added a few cross-processing layers and slightly tweaked the colour balance. Lastly I added a light vignette.

    Been a long day, not much more to add.

  • Black Swan

    With a nice and clear, but cool sky, we took a stroll down to Chelsea Park. Walking a few tracks I didn’t cover on my last visit I brought along the Sony Nex and its new telephoto lens. When I tried it out earlier in the week the low sun, combined with hand holding and limited wildlife made me want to give it another go today. Down at the bottom of the reserve is a large pond full of ducks, seagulls, shags, geese and a few swans – so I was spoilt for choice and shot images of each.

    I chose today’s image ‘Black Swan’ as I was drawn to the composition and the ripples of water softly emanating from the swan. In post production, using Gimp, I used the National Geographic filter set, making small adjustments to its use of sharpness, saturation and contrast. I also cropped the image slightly to remove the foot of the swan which interfered with the soft ripples of the water.

    I’m quite happy with the result, and the performance of the lens at 210mm.