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  • Sheep in the Park

    Today we took a trip through the Shakespear Regional Park, ~40min north of Auckland. Mid morning the sheep were already up and busy eating the hills of grass. With Ricoh in hand, and its 28mm lens, I got as close as I could to the sheep before they started to run away. I love the wide angle of the Ricoh, but its not always easy getting up and close to things like sheep who chew, stare then run. Just visible in the background is Rangitoto Island – Also in last months ‘Friday Unwind’, what makes Rangitoto interesting is that is essentially the same shape from anywhere on the mainland. Ill post an image of that sometime in the future. I also took a long wander along the Gulf Harbour Marina and got a few snaps I will likely share in the next few days also.

    Taken on the GRD IV, in bleach mode, cropped in post with Gimp and black surround added.

  • Abandoned Ute

    Out on the road writing from a motel today. Today we went up for brunch at the Leigh Sawmill Cafe – a great place to stop for a meal & band, or on the way to Goat Island, about an hour north of Auckland. Whilst walking up a viewpoint track I spotted a ute abandoned on someones farm. I always find it curious farmers seem to run their vehicles until they stop and just leave them there – theres probably a photographic book on that topic alone!

    Taken on the Ricoh and post cropped to remove some of the foreground which had dark shadows. I started taking some images on the Rollei 35 today also, so am looking forward to seeing how they turn out when I finish the film. Staying at an area called Gulf Harbour tonight. Looks to be some good snap opportunities for Sunday ahead!

  • Blue Windows in the Sky

    Image

    I stopped in at Takapuna on the way home from work today for a stroll, Ricoh in hand. It was a beautiful clear blue evening, with the moon already up. The Sentinel, a 30 story apartment building in central Takapuna uses blue tint windows, and I liked the overall blue hue I got in this image. Being the biggest building in the Area, you can also capture it in the sky unhindered by other buildings.

    Coming home and reducing the image size for the web I was happy to see Gimp has finally released the 2.8 version of their great program. Its taken about 3 years to come about following 2.6 and now offers a single window interface. For people who want something that can in may ways (no not all I know) do all you need in Photoshop, but free-ware, I cant recommend Gimp enough. Overall my work flow shifted from CS4 to Gimp about 3 years ago. Its a bit of a learning curve transferring, but if you have never used either I don’t think it is any harder to pick up from scratch, will do all you ever want & has a massive community of developers adding to it + there is a version for every computer operating system (yet to get to smart phones)

    Off for a short 3 day holiday tomorrow, so hopefully I will have some images from a different general location.

  • Portrait of a BMW

    Todays image is one I took a little while ago on my Sony A230 DSLR with a 50mm Minolta lens. I really wanted to see if I could create a car image that may have been used by BMW when releasing the 5 Series . Although this is the smaller web optimized version of that image I’m pretty happy with the end result, and think its a much more appealing image in B&W.

    I finally finished off the B&W film in my Ricoh today and sent it off to the developers, si I’m keenly waiting to see what I get back and what I can share here. I’ll load and start shooting a self develop film in my Rollei 35 T over the next few days also – it will be interesting to see how I go stepping back to a full manual setup – including the necessity to guess the focus distance as the 35’s have no focus assistance like most cameras.

    Queens Birthday celebrated here in NZ on Monday, so one more day till the long weekend!

  • One-way Rush Hour

    I’m starting to think whenever I take my Sony out, it brings the rain along with it… if it wasn’t for winter I’d be convinced! Todays image, ‘One-way Rush Hour’ taken in high contrast B&W on the Nex 5n shows the traffic leaving town just after knock off time. Often the traffic is heavy both ways, so I must have caught it either just to early, or late.

    Taken from the overpass at Pt Erin, I like how the lines of the motorway take to you the cityscape in the background. Just on sundown again, the B&W image had more impact the color ones shot at the same time.