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  • Photo Sketch of a Memory

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    Todays image is a bit of a recreation from when I was around 7 years old. I was walking home, through a graveyard after sunset one late summers night. Memory serves that it was a mild/cold evening, and particularly quiet.  As I walked past a certain part of the graveyard, one of the taller gravestones had a weird red shining light on the top of it, glowing enough so I could make out the surrounding graves. As a small kid, I found it pretty scary and took off home at a quicker pace.

    Ive since visited the graveyard many times, and always stop to look at the grave with the glowing red light. Its solid concrete…

    I don’t have any explanation for what I saw, but it sticks firmly in my memory to this day when I pass graveyards.

    ‘Photo Sketch of a Memory’ is an image of the very grave. Working in Gimp, I gave the image a sketched B&W filter and then inversed it, upping the contrast. I then transformed the concrete light into a red glowing light, not unlike that in my memories.

  • A Broccoli Was Born

    We flew back to Auckland this afternoon, welcomed by dark clouds and rain, the long weekend was over. Just before landing, above the rain clouds, there was a marvelous potential shot looking out across a cloudscape. I pulled out my Fed (also hoping to finish my film), but was warned by the flight attendant I could not use my camera. In the short moment I had, I tried to explain it was 1. not digital, 2. not electronic (not even a lightmeter battery), so 3. not breaching any of their digital regulations we felt she was suggesting. My lesson from today was not to have a front seat. Never mind!

    In the small flat we live in, I built some plant boxes to grow some vegetables. Growing up we always had fresh veges from the garden, and I only recently tried my hand at green fingers growing. Earlier this week when heading off to work I spotted the first of the broccoli heads starting to sprout…all very exciting from a Jr gardener perspective. Armed with the Ricoh, I got up close and took this shot of it popping its head up.

    Shooting mostly with film over the weekend (apart from my WordPress mobile phone images) was fun and relaxing. I’m yet to see how it all went, but thats part of the excitement we loose with digital. As many others state, I took some more time setting up the image, whenever possible, and had to really think about exposure and aperture values as I didnt have a lightmeter. If I manage to finish the film this week, I’ll aim to develop it next weekend.

  • Ocean View

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    A lazy day was had in New Plymouth today. Its nice to take a break from the hussle and bussle of day to day life – sometimes it takes one to be taken out of their invironment in order to be able to do it!
    I caught todays image on the waterfront. I like the openness of the image. You can imagine sitting on the seat, stairing at the ocean and letting your mind wander.
    I also got some shots on the Fed1, so eargerly await to see how they turn out.
    Taken on the samsung galaxy s2 using vignette app.

  • The Honeymaker

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    The weather was great down in New Plymouth after a clear flight. I love window seats when flying over land. Unfortunatly I had not switched my phone to flight mode, so I didnt grsb any in flight shots. Upon reaching our destination I did some relaxing in the sun and caught this little guy gathering shopping to make honey.
    I also got some shots off on the fed1, so will see how my sunny 16 judgements go.

  • Wall of Bricks

    I’m not sure why, but I always like a photo of brick or stone walls/fences. I cant quite pinpoint the attraction. Perhaps its just respect for a well made wall!?

    So a wall it is for todays image! – Taken on the Ricoh with bleach mode, I played around with the color levels a little to bring back the red-brown of the bricks.

    Most of this evening was spent putting my Fed-1 35mm rangefinder back together. Ive loaded it with a roll of B&W, so between that and my cellphone, thats all the camera equipment I intend to take with me to New Plymouth (…unless I swap it out for the initially intended Rollei 35). Im going to brush up on my sunny 16 skills as the Fed does not have a lightmeter.