Mercer, New Zealand
Sun in the Trees
The last Ko Lanta Sunset
Our last night in Ko Lanta, we arrived early and got some good viewing seats at the corner of the resort. It was claimed to be one of the best spots to see a sunset in all of Ko Lanta. We had been previous nights, but unfortunately the weather had not been in our favour. Today still had a low set of clouds as the sun edged towards the sea, but the sky colours afterwards were certainly beautiful.
It was our last proper sunset for Thailand actually. in 24 hours time we would already be flying away from our holiday!
I love the colour the sky became as all around fell to night. Isn’t nature just awesome!
Little Flowers in the Sun
Beautiful hot day today. Caught this snap outside my property fence. Think these are technically weeds, but nice flowers!
Summer Rolls In
A fantastic Saturday in Auckland today brings along the hope that Summer is starting to arrive. The beach hosted a number of people sunbathing, relaxing and swimming.
Stepping back into non mobile cameras, I brought along the GRD IV to capture today’s shot. Using Gimp in post processing I added a cross processed filter, which added a duckish blue tint. I also cropped to square format, before resizing to post.
Off out for the second BBQ of the season tonight. I still have several shots of film left on my Rollei 35 to finish.
Enjoy your Saturday!
Mt. Victoria Mushrooms
On the summit of Mt Victoria sit a patch of giant mushrooms. Big red mushrooms with white dots. Actually ventilation ducts, the ‘mushrooms’ have been painted multiple times over the decades, and make an intersting site for people visiting the Mt Victoria to get a view of the North Shore, town, and Rangitoto (in the background of my image). I believe originally they were painted by a local Devonport artist, her boyfriend and his mate – it featured in a local paper article many years ago.
Being the oddity they are, I wanted to highlight them in todays image. After taking the image on the GRD, I desaturated all but the mushrooms in Gimp. I then slightly tweaked the sharpness and contrast to get the most out of the mixed color/B&W image.
Natures Paintbrush
As one would gather scrolling through my posts, I take a lot of still life and nature type photographs. This may be in nature itself, or capturing a street void of people. I actually enjoy taking pictures of people and events also, but I think I often use my photography time as my own little time-out or quiet time to (in the week at least) break from the day to day roles our work puts us under.
Looking at todays image, what you wouldn’t know is that I was standing over a busy motorway with a good amount of people walking by on their way home. Titles ‘Natures Paintbrush’ I love the color todays sunset had, and the sweeping cirrus type clouds that look like they are converging upon the setting sun.
Shot with the Ricoh and cropped to remove some of the foreground in Gimp. One more day till the weekend!
Reborn
Creatures that go through multiple forms are amazing. Imagine going from a caterpillar to a butterfly. Do they know they are going to make the change? – crawling along on branches eating, then being ‘reborn’ and swooping through the sky. Todays little guy was snapped still on the swan plant that they eat down here. Caught early in the morning, it was covered with dew, and unlucky to appear to have had something nibbling its wings overnight. Warming up as the sun arose, it looked like it was getting ready to take off.
Taken with the Ricoh GRD IV, on no modes, I love the bright rich colors.
Kung-Fu Lorikeet
Visiting one of Auckland’s bigger bird stores. The Bird Barn, I ran into this colorful little chap. Squarking loud and following my every move as I walked around the aviary, I snapped him on an old compact digi cam, the Fuji FinePix J15fd.He seemed pretty used to the attention and continued running up and down in front of me until I left – to which he started squarking at me again.
Whilst beautiful to look at, over the years various breeders have let these into the wild in NZ. Native to Australia, they thrive, but at the cost of our native birds, who get chased, bullied and have their nesting areas stolen. Unlike the native birds, whom defend their areas often in pairs, they often move in flocks.
As above, taken on a J15fr compact, cropped and slightly adjusted in Gimp.
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