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  • By the Lake

    On my way home today I stopped for a wander on the local lake on Auckland’s North Shore, Lake Pupuke. The ‘Pump house’, featured in the photo, now a place to see small theatre, was in 1894 a functioning pump house supplying the lakes fresh water to residents on the North Shore. Local Maori legend tells of a couple who cursed the god of fire. In retribution for her, the god of earthquakes and volcanoes destroyed their home – the lake being the result. Todays its much more peaceful and used for various recreational activities from fishing to windsurfing.

    Taken on my GRD IV and converted in Gimp to B&W with the contrast up a notch. Also resized to a similar aspect to the ‘Golden Ratio’

    One more weekday to go!

  • Lost Sunset

    I have mentioned that with Winter approaching the days have been getting shorter and shorter. As a consequence, it’s often dark as I leave and go home from work during the week. Today I left just prior to sunset. It was a particularly amazing red sunset tonight, glowing off a mass of clouds. I battled the traffic to get to a local beach to catch it, but missed most of the sunset but the time I got to my destination… never mind!

    Taken with the GRD set to ‘cross processed’ and with the saturation bumped up in post process, I caught the last ray of color before it all vanished.

    Happy mid week!

  • Toetoe in the Sky

    Todays image, ‘Toetoe in the Sky’, was shot on the same walkway from ‘Dark Mangroves’. Stretching up to the sky, Toetoe (often spelt/pronounced toitoi) are New Zealands Native version of the Cortaderia family – perhaps know to some overseas as pampas grass.

    Shot in color and converted to B&W in Gimp, I like the play between light and shadow on the toetoe, the shadowed under the clouds and the bright under the clear sky.

  • The Wind Wand

    One from the archives today. Taken on my visit down to New Plymouth on the lower west coast of the North Island, I came across ‘The Wind Wand’ along the waterfront. Going by the massive coastal wave wall and the fairly strong breeze, the wand was really in its element bending and swaying to and fro. Designed by a New Zealand artist, Len Lye,  Weighing 900KG and standing 45 meters high – this thing can bend in the wind at least 20 meters!

    Again taken on a cellphone – a Samsung Galaxy 3, using the app vignette, it shows that one can get an interesting shot (in my opinion at least) no matter what photographic tool one uses. I really like the heavy vignette, following the walkway along to the wand as it bends back out into the strong swell of the Tasman Sea.

  • Dark Mangroves

    Another weekend stroll today took me on a different section of last Sundays path (Lazy Walk in the Park). Whilst picturesque in its own way, it didn’t have so much color, rather more low lying mangrove swamp. I snapped off a number of different shots, but chose this one for todays posting.

    Converting to B&W and boosting the contrast, I liked the dark mood of the scene ahead. Peering through the naked tree branch, one is not quite sure what to expect ahead.