On a recent holiday down in the South Island of New Zealand I visited Taiaroa Head, an albatross breeding colony, just outside of Dunedin. Armed with My Ricoh, I captured this great shot of the coastline. Setting the camera to bleach bypass at the time, I love how the contrasty nature of the image highlights the natural scenery, and the lighthouse can just be spotted in the distance. As well as spotting albatross, its a beautiful semi-remote region, well worth the trip if your ever in the area!
I ventured across the harbor for a stroll in town today with a new old lens for my Sony Nex 5N. One thing that makes the Sony great is the wide range of adapters you can get to fit other branded and era lenses. My newly acquired lens is an old 55mm Soviet FED Industar 61. Overall I found it a nice lens to use with good smooth controls and some nice images produced. The Industar 61’s can be a bit hit and miss quality wise, but they are generally a cheap and cheerful purchase.. I did struggle today with the 35mm equivalent of around 80mm – I generally use my GRD IV day in/out with its equivalent 28mm. All being said, after an initial struggle I came up with some images I was happy with. Street photography is not an area I have practiced enough, so i’ll have to get out there a bit more. Todays image is taken in the lower section of Auckland City. The only post processing being done is a small crop and converting to B&W.
Continuing on from my last entry where I discussed B&W being one of my more preferred mediums, I though I would post up a photo from my archives. I took this image on a Sony A230 on the windy west coast beach, Muriwai. The west coast gets battered by waves and wind, both forming and at other times destroying the sand dunes along the coastline. Muriwai is also home to a fairly large gannet colony, well worth a visit if you are in the area! In B&W I love how the wild nature of the area is highlighted with the contrasty sky and exposed roots of the tree.I ended up having this printed on A2 canvas, so its in my personal top pics for the last few years.
Another clear blue sky marked the end of the working week today. I took a stroll up one of the local hills to take in the ‘golden hour’ as the sun dropped low on the horizon. Whilst I liked each of the three images alone, I decided to combine them to show the progressive journey to the final shot, peeking through the harakeke (flax) towards Rangitoto on the other side of the harbor.
Now we are in autumn here in NZ we are getting some amazingly clear and fresh days as we head into winter. The temperature has dropped, but its still awesome weather in the sun with no wind. I was on my way back to the office and pulled over to take a shot of the clear blue sky. With an abundance of evergreens and lack of deciduous plants I wanted to create that autumn feeling still. I give my image a bit of the old washed out film look. To me it creates the visual feeling of a cool, crisp and clear day.
