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  • Caution

    For Health and Safety reasons we had a caution sign put on our hot water urn at work recently. It got me thinking about how much aspects of the world have changed in the last decade or so. When I was young my dad would take me to the surf beach where I would tumble about in the waves. I know people who wont go there now as its too dangerous. There was a three story playground near my Grandmas house – I passed it a while ago and the top floor has been removed, the second floor fenced in…we used to climb on the roof and I never heard of a kid falling. Rope swings were on trees on hills – giving kids a terrifying rush when they held on with all their might…now the trees have been cut down due to danger risks.

    Have we taken safety and caution so far that we are preventing people/kids from learning lessons any more? I cant help but think so.

    Image wise, using my mobile phone and Vignette I was drawn to the urn for the simple and washed look. Black, white and red. The days sun coming from the left and casting the shadow of the urn and bareness otherwise leaves a simple, yet thoughtful image reflecting my above thoughts. In post processing with Gimp I cropped for the net and added an extra 1/4 to the left of the image to almost square the image and create the composition I was initially after.

  • Island Bay Wharf

    Some more mixed weather again today with warm bright sun, followed by heavy cold showers… Spring is on its way!

    A visit for work to Beach Haven took me past Island Bay Wharf. Testing my balance again in flat soled dress shows I worked my way down the muddy sandstone flats to the base of the wharf to capture a few shots.

    With a white sky, the image improved greatly when I converted to black and white in Gimp.

    I also took delivery of a new lens for my Nex (actually one new and one old), both longer telephoto zooms, one Sony and the other an old Minolta mount. If the weather is right I might try to take them out in the weekend.

  • Ask the Big G

    Some more street art combined with ‘nature art’ today. Walking through town after work I narrowly missed a downpour of rain and went looking for some more interesting street art. Just as I came across this interesting ‘I don’t have all the answers’ artwork a rainbow appeared! I thought it made a pretty funny combination and play on themes with Mr J looking up at the sky and a rainbow leading the way up.

    Taken on my Galaxy cellphone, in post production I wanted to over-do the photo a little. Pushing the saturation hard, I brought out the rainbow a little more and gave the buildings over the fence a golden glow. I lightened the blue wall a little and added a touch of sharpening and contrast.

    If you like the artwork check out component’s art here. there is a lot of cool work, much that I have spotted when on my journeys in town.

  • Punakaiki and the Rocks

    Looking back over my last handful of images I decided today needed a bit more colour and brightness to it! As I had worked extra yesterday, I was hoping to get off early today, but unfortunately that was not to be…so I dived into my archives.

    Punakaiki, otherwise know as the place with the Pancake Rocks, is part of the Paparoa National Park in the South Island of New Zealand. I visited them late last year (along with a huge group of other tourists to the area). The amazing pancake like ‘piles’ stretch out from the ocean and stand out as a bit of an oddity compared to everything else around them. As the tide comes up there is a number of blow-holes. I encourage anyone travelling the South Island to put it in one of your (many) must stop locations!

  • Black & White Sky

    I managed to develop the film from the Rollei 35 last night. As previously mentioned, it was a 100asa I had pushed to 800asa. To top it off, its of about the cheapest film brand – Lucky SHD100. Overall I think I could have either pushed out the developing time/temperature, or given a little more exposure on the camera. I have not actually tested the camera against a light meter or one of my digital cameras, so should do that. Anyway, the film was a bit under exposed as a result of one of the above.

    That being said, I did get a number of images I liked the feel of, today’s image ‘Black and White Sky’ being one of them.  After scanning I used Gimp to slightly straighten, crop and then bumped the contrast a little and added the slight sepia tone. Taken without any filters, I do like the boat masts reaching up to a dramatic sky and the ball of sun at the top.