Fiji Sunrise

With cold wind and bouts of heavy rain, it felt like a good day to dig into the photo archives, taking me back to a warmer climate. Shot early one morning during our stay in Fiji, I recall waking up just on sunrise. The resort area was dead quiet, with only a few staff busily walking around getting ready for when holiday stayers woke up for breakfast. One man, silhouetted in the foreground, was busy raking up the piles of weed that wash up daily into tidy little piles waiting for the crew on the tractor to pick up again later in the day. In the background we see the mountains, if memory serves, of the sleeping giant (I think his belly is just to the left of the closer pine trees). Temperature already warm compared to New Zealand…

back to my cosy winter fire.

July 14, 2013 0

Roadworks Fiji Time

Its funny how some images, to the individual, appeal. One from my archives – Roadworks Fiji Time, was shot on my Ricoh GRD IV whilst in Fiji the other month. I cant really hit the nail on the head what appeals to me about the image, but I like it. I do recall being quite impressed with the focus and detail of the rubble pile, coming from the Ricoh – perhaps visually assisted by the filter settings I had it on… perhaps it just reminds me of the day or the moment at the time.

Nothing other than resizing in post processing.

This weekend has flown by. What I have noticed is the Christmas decorations and stores now opening up – is it that time already!?!

November 11, 2012 0

Leaving on a Jet Plane

A week on, reflecting on my trip to Fiji, I had a great time. The people were nice, the weather was great, and the food equally fantastic. I’m not sure when, but I’d like to go back again one day. I have a pile more shots, some which I will post at some stage, but for now, I’ll leave the series with today’s ‘Leaving on a Jet Plane’ – my last ‘on foot’ view of the country.

Using Gimp, I cropped, converted to B&W , sharpened and added a vignette. The image worked fairly well in colour also, but I like the changes so went with the monochrome final.

September 28, 2012 0

‘Follow the Yellow Brick Road’

So…its not a brick road, or a yellow one at that, but ‘follow the orange flower trail’ didn’t have quite the ring to it that came to mind when I took, or view today’s image.

When out in the bush, in general, we get an amazing mix of forest colours – browns and greens essentially. These orange flowers that had fallen from the trees really stood out when we went through a trail in Fiji. When I captured the image, I was drawn to the trail of orange disappearing into the path ahead.

Originally captured in portrait, I went for a square format in my post processing – keeping all the subject matter in the image and not loosing anything of any relevance. Some people shoot a lot in square format – whether it be the traditional medium format 6×6 film, cropped digital or various smart phone apps. I do quite like the format, so may look at doing some more, probably B&W in it at some stage.

Cropping aside, I also pushed the saturation a bit to make the flowers pop, and slightly sharpened the image also.

Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV.

September 27, 2012 0

Fiji Forest

Another 35mm film shot from my Ricoh GR1 in the forest of Fiji I walked through to get to a waterfall. Following the river down, we can see the irritated horse I featured a the day before last (I think its the one anyway), before the river disappears into the forest.

Not a lot more to say about this image as we reach mid-week and I am slowly getting back into the ‘work mode’ – Its funny how just over a week away can both go by so quick, yet seem to last so much longer. I’ve never been to good at getting back into the swing of work after a holiday away!

Photo wise, after scanning the film I used Gimp to play with the levels slightly, apply a sharpen and give the image a very slight sepia like tone.

Whilst I have had a camera on me at all times, I have not really taken many images so far this week. I still have a few more of Fiji I want to share before getting back to my local production, so there is no chance of running out of images anyway!

September 26, 2012 2

Choose, Sit, Relax

I stayed at a resort for the base of my holiday to Fiji – ‘Fiji Beach Resort & Spa, Managed by Hilton’ to be more precise. It was a nice place – great service, rooms, food etc. – not something I am very used to really (pitching a tent is more what I am used to).

Getting up one morning early (it appears only the staff aside from me did this) I made my way to the breakfast restaurant and caught this image. I was drawn to the orderly nature of the chairs & it got me thinking how organised the whole relaxation ‘thing’ is. Here we have rows of deckchairs overlooking a beautiful beach with a couple of great clean salt free pools. People travel thousands of miles to get in early with their towel to book a chair they can then lay in the sun on for the rest of the day. Most people read books, but with the advent of mobile technology I cant help but think that many were still keeping tabs with work and not really relaxing (one reason I chose to go technology free aside from my camera).

Personally I get more relaxation going for a walk, which I did a lot of, checking out and discovering new sights and sites. But throughout the week, when returning for a swim I got to recognise the same individuals in their favourite chairs getting browner and browner – or redder and redder. I’m certainly not knocking it, its just a bit foreign to me!

Back to the image, I did a little post processing in Gimp. I first gave the image a light lomo effect filter with some vignette, followed by a cross-processing filter with a blue tint.. I then cropped the aspect a little, removing some dead space in behind the first chair in the image. Struggling to find the title I wanted, I finally settled on ‘Choose, Sit, Relax’

September 25, 2012 0

A Horse in a Forest

I got the opportunity to develop one of my films from Fiji today. It was by accident that I had loaded a roll of Ilford Pan400 into the camera, planning to shoot colour for the whole holiday, but it made its way into my case somehow, and since Ricoh GR1’s pre-load the film before shooting, it was easier to just go with it than swap it out for colour (my colour films have been sent off for developing).

Anyway, today’s image was shot in a rainforest area several hours south from Nadi in Fiji. We were taking a trip to an inland waterfall after visiting one of the local villages seeking permission to enter. Some tourists ride up rather than walk, and I came across such a group on my return to the village. Unfortunately this horse was not in the best of moods today and had caused some issues on the trip up (I would too if I had to carry people through a muddy forest in the hot midday heat). Using my GR1 I got as close as I felt secure (it looks further away with a 28mm lens) and captured the horse and his guide calming him.

In post production using Gimp, I adjusted the levels a little, but otherwise left it as scanned. Considering the brightness, even undercover of the canopy, I was happy with the result the 400asa film gave me.

September 24, 2012 3

Searching for Shade

Fresh back from Fiji, I’ve had just enough time to look over my digital images. For those reading who may have missed my final decision, I ended up making it a ’28mm Holiday’, taking along my GR1 and GRD IV Ricoh cameras. I shot off two colour and one black and white films on the GR1, and a fair number of digital images also. Weather being fantastic, the light was also pretty harsh come mid-morning.

Today’s image, ‘Searching for Shade’ is one of my favourites from my initial inspection of images. Taking a stroll around the Denarau Port area, Nadi Fiji, where we were based, the temperature was around 30 degrees Celsius with no cloud cover. I managed to find a larger tree with good foliage and sat down to try and cool down a little. Transitioning from Auckland’s ~12degrees the week before, it took me a few days to adapt to the heat!

Just down, back in the sun from where I sat, I captured this image on my GRD IV. Using the bleach bi-pass mode. I particularly like how the bleach bi-pass in the Ricoh worked with the harsh bright light I had during the day. Sitting back at home its 11 degrees again…don’t think I’m quite over the holiday yet – I’d welcome that tree in the shade right about now!

September 23, 2012 1

Follow the Leader

‘Follow the Leader’ seemed the natural title when I snapped this badelynge of ducks at Kell Park in Albany after work.Getting down low with the Nex 5N and 16mm lens, I think they initially thought I came bearing gifts, and soon changed direction when they realised they were just getting their pictures taken.

Its funny the amount of names a duck ‘pack’ can be given: Often referred as a paddle of ducks, we also see them called a flock, raft, team, badelynge, bunch, and brace.

Kell park itself offers a nice walk by the creek amongst native bush of Albany. It has a big playground for children, and lots of seats to sit back and relax in the environment. Back when I was young it also had an abundant public pear grove, where one could fill up sacks of pears to take home (or eat whilst helping) – I didn’t get to that part of it today, so don’t know if the trees are still around.

I made the decision today that I’m going to go almost technology-free next week in Fiji. I will have my Ricoh GRD IV, but other than that, not even my mobile phone. I work around computers all day long and have decided I will go without for a week. It will most likely be a bit of a shock to the system for me! I plan to set up some images to auto post throughout the week, so none of you reading this will go without – you will just have to wait a few weeks before seeing my Fiji images.

My final news for the day was that I received a self-birthday gift today – a Ricoh GR1. The granddad of my GRD IV, I have been keen on getting one for some time. Generally they fetch quite high prices, so when one popped up at a reasonable price (and around my birthday) I could not resist. That’s going to mean I have a digital and film 28mm holiday next week!

September 11, 2012 0

Into the Storm

As I often state on weekdays, I just managed to get a bit of light after work on the way home. I had packed my Nex and its new lens into my bag, hoping to give it a test out. Whilst I did manage that, and got some nice shots (and some flat sundown ones) I wanted to post up something different to my usual nature/landscape. With the lens at 210mm I set about looking for some wildlife. It proved quite still and dull overall tonight.

Just as I was heading back to the car a few seagulls approached and I managed to get off a few shots. With low light and a long lens the autofocus just missed a number of shots, but I did like this one of the bird heading ‘into the storm’.

In post processing using Gimp all I did was push the contrast to make it look more menacing than it actually was. Shot at 210mm, 1/400sec at 1250iso the push also revealed the digital grain of the image. I’m a grain fan in photos (that old film appeal) so am happy letting it sit.

In about 3 weeks I’m off to Fiji for a week, which is pretty exciting as I have never been there. My current dilemma is do I take a bag full of cameras and lenses, or travel more lightweight (with the added benefit of not carrying so much money investment!). I’m leaning towards taking my Ricoh GRD and my Rollei 35. I’ll also have my smart phone to hopefully post a snap each day also. When I went to the South Island last year I only had my Ricoh and Mju 35mm – I think the compact allows you to travel with ease and think more about how to capture the image. What do you all do?

August 23, 2012 0