• 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.

  • image

    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.

  • image

    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.

  • 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.

  • Another one from the 35mm archives today. Im not sure where this was taken and only vaguely remember the outing, but am sure its of the UK countryside. Here in NZ virtually all our country fences are #8 wire. I remember being amazed of the number and lengths of old stone walls out in the country in the UK. The view, whilst not totally dissimilar, is slightly different then the rolling hills down here. After scanning, I cropped this image to square format in Gimp and did a little color balancing. I think the settings on the film scanner have gone a little haywire. As with other overseas 35mm film photos – image taken on the Minolta Dynax 700si.

    Im heading down country to New Plymouth this weekend, so should have some time to take fresh images. A lot of this week has been late at work, and then coming home rather then night shooting. I have also been busy working on an old Fed 1 rangefinder camera which I hope to get some shots on soon. I plan to take my Rollei 35T away this weekend with some B&W film loaded, so all going well i’ll have that developed next week also.