The Hidden Cove

Waking up at 5am, I jumped in the car and headed to Auckland’s West Coast to catch some early morning images. With a host of beaches to choose from, I settled on my favorite – Piha Beach.

39km west of Auckland’s CBD, its a long windy road to get to Piha. From the direction I came, I took a road called Scenic Drive. Scenic drive itself was built in the 1930’s depression by those on unemployment at the time. Often crossing ridge lines, when an opening in the trees becomes available, it offers a magnificent view of various parts of Auckland.

Unfortunately for me, the sky was very overcast at Piha the whole morning I was there, only clearing in the afternoon, on my home journey. I did take a number of shots however, and will look to edit through them and share a little later in the week, along with some more information on the local area.

Today’s shot was taken just around the corner from the southern end of Piha. The image does not show it, but it was blowing fairly strong winds! (I had to retrieve my hat which blew off the cliff!).

Image/Editing wise, the same as the last few days. Shot on the Samsung Galaxy S2 using Vignette with a digital Polaroid setting. Writing added in Photoshop CS5.

January 7, 2013 0

No Family Portrait Today

Catching up with friends today in Devonport for Fish and Chips, it was decided the time was right for a family portrait…well, for all but the youngest member Emily. As soon as everyone lined up and cameras were at the ready, Emily heard the call of the sea-saw and rushed off.

I captured today’s shot just before she fell out of frame. Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV, in bleach bi-pass mode, I loved the lighting effect and the almost street photography like quality of the image.

In post processing using Gimp, I kept the focus on Emily and added some blur to different stages of the background. Other than the blur, its as is from the camera.

One more day left for 2012. Prior to a celebration/welcoming of 2013 with friends, I plan to be out for some of the day on the bicycle. I’m not sure where we will be going as yet, but likely I will find something to shoot!

December 30, 2012 0

The ‘Behind’

When out looking for shots, whether it be in the bush, or more-so in built up areas like town, I am always more interested in finding the less trodden path. Along small alleyways, behind big department stores, up delivery drives and near fire escapes – all are often more interesting than the ‘front door’. I think usually it is because they are run down, dirty and…well, not in need of being presented, because few people intended for inside go there.

Today’s image is one such that I took in town over the weekend with my Ricoh GR1, using ilford PAN 400 film. My film scanner has colour and B&W settings, and I used the colour setting which gave me the more sepia finish. I decided to keep it rather than convert to grey-scale. Other than that, using Gimp I straightened the image a little, applied a sharpening filter and kept the image as is.

Its been a little while since I used my Rollei 35. I have been meaning to measure its light-meter calibration against one of my digital’s. If I have time this weekend (outside running a ‘limited training’ half marathon), I might stick my last Ilford in it and give it a run.

October 24, 2012 0

Burried City

I’m fascinated by archaeology. All around the world you hear of digs where ancient ruins, cities and tombs lay. Whether it be forgotten, reclaimed by nature, or purposefully encased and locked away. If I hadn’t studied anthropology and sociology, I think I would have studies archaeology.

Today’s image is actually just a piece of art work at a central city park (a highly post processed one that that) that I snapped on my Galaxy S2 when taking a stroll through several days ago.

I wanted to create a scene where the building had been buried on a grass plane. The original of the photo is actually just next to a walkway, and behind that a main road and shops. I cropped out those items and cloned in grass – which worked OK if you don’t look too close. I then applied multiple layers and filters making the old building quite hard against its green background.

I wonder what our cities will look like a millennia from now?

October 2, 2012 3

Tempest

Another piece of art from the Auckland Art Gallery I visited recently.

Painted by Henry Fuseli, Jean-Pierre Simon in 1791, titled Shakespeare: Tempest, Act I, Scene I.

Fuseli’s paintings for Boydell’s Shakespeare Gallery, which opened in London in 1786, proved enormously popular, and a number of engravers produced works from them. When living in Rome the artist had made numerous studies of Michelangelo’s figures in the Sistine Chapel, and the gesture of Prospero in this scene from the Tempest is a direct reference to the Creation of Adam. Mezzotint was particularly successful in depicting dramatic chiaroscuro effects; the darkness of Prospero’s cell contrasts with the light cast by Ariel’s flight, which in turn draws attention to Caliban’s grotesque face. (Monsters and Maidens, 2004)

I love old pieces like this. Imagine being a child in 1791 and gazing upon it. It would be pretty scary. Now days with all our technology for the movies, games etc, imagination can kind of take a bit of a back-burner in peoples minds. Imagining back to 1791, as a child, one may have viewed the image during the day, and reflected back upon it as our candle flickered the shadows in our cool room as we tried to get to sleep. I’m not suggesting that still does not happen, but its a little different…

No signature as I just took the image and cropped to fit (its not my art).

September 19, 2012 0

The Street

As discussed yesterday, I managed to finish and develop the film in my Ricoh Singlex TLS last night. I had recently given it a clean up, so was keen to see if all was still functioning well. The slow speeds are still not quite right and will require me to give it a CLA at some stage, but as I cant use them hand-held anyway, its functioning well. A well used and rarer ‘black model’, introduced in 1967, my unit has some well worn paint and brassing. Compared to later model fully manual film SLR’s the TLS is a heavy beast at a bit over 700 grams.

Today’s image ‘The Street’ was taken last weekend when I was testing out the fisheye lens on my mobile phone camera. I got a series of different town shots in my short time there, this one being shot whilst I was quickly walking to my ride home.

Aside from scanning the negative and resizing in Gimp, I made no alterations. Shot on Lucky SHD100asa film, developed with Ilford ID-11 at a 1:3 ratio.

September 7, 2012 0

Waterfront City

I took a stroll through the city tonight after catching up with some friends. The WRC is all setup in Auckland this afternoon, so I hoped to see some of the cars, but I guess I arrived a little late in the evening. Turning back to the city, I caught this shot down by the waterfront. I love how even though it was captured in color, its almost B&W. The bright lights, but dark city and weary looking sky also creates a bit of an ominous feeling when I look at it.

Shot on the GRD IV in bleach, I cropped a little of the foreground out of the image to create more balance in the final image. Otherwise unedited.

June 23, 2012 0

Nex in the City

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.

May 6, 2012 0

Beginnings

Welcome to MikeHawkey.com! Once I get up and rolling I’ll be posting various images and conversational observations. For today, here’s ‘Elephant in the City’. Playing around in Gimp (http://www.gimp.org), I got thinking about animals roaming free around our inner city regions (a little 12 Monkeys like). Grabbed a city shot from my GR IV and one of Burma @ Auckland Zoo from my Nex 5N, and here we are, Burma taking a stroll down lower central city Auckland.

May 1, 2012 0