Long Bay – MikeHawkey.com

Another hot day in Auckland. Out and about doing chores and similar, I have not yet had a chance to take any images today, so will post another from yesterdays visit to Long Bay.

Wandering through the park, there are a number of overflow car parks. At its peak in summer this year, Long Bay had about 25000 visitors (!) and a 2 hour car jam waiting to get in. Fridays visit, with schools and work back, was substantially less, and I wandered through the closed off car park with only the sound of the birds and wind through the tree. The ranger must have been chopping up a few trees recently, and I took a few shots of the pile of logs left. With a total fire ban at present due to dry conditions, these logs were unlikely to be used for a BBQ or similar any tie soon.

Shot on the GRD IV. Using Gimp I rounded the corners and resized. Otherwise as is from camera.

Today celebrated my workplaces annual Big Day Out. Held at the beautiful Long Bay beach, the sun was beating down by early afternoon, and those of whom had not brought our togs, wished we had.

Taking a moment for a stroll, armed with my Ricoh GRD IV, I captured a number of images, both showing the beautiful beach, and also the drought like conditions that have been sweeping the country (Luckily for Auckland, no where near as bad as farmers North of Auckland). Walking under a selection of trees, I was amazed to see literally multiple tens (lets estimate 30) of Swallows darting in and out of the trees. All the other animals I had seen were sheltering under trees out of the heat.

Now looking to capture any close up action of a small bird with a 28mm lens is never going to happen, so I framed up the trees and sky and looked to capture a silhouette of several birds as they flew overhead. Todays image being my pick of the bunch for today.

Using Gimp, I slightly cropped the image in post processing.

Weekend time!

I am generally one of those people who get a sense of relaxation and re-energizing from nature. Walking through the forest or bush, or along the beach the air feels cleaner, we have less (not none) forms of modern technology buzzing around us. Its a unloaded simpler feeling.

However, I also enjoy exploring ‘things in change’ – areas under construction (as well as areas returning to nature). Sundays walk took me to a new development area in Long Bay – the northern point of the North Shore. Here open fields and scrub has made way for carefully planned and measured sections for residential use. There is one road in/out with a monolith of a structure announcing you have entered this likely prestigious area. Today’s image was taken at the edge of this boundary, just before entering the area. For me, the title Construct Zone both signifies an area in change, literally being constructed, but also the mental symbolics of construct being the putting together of planning and theory to create a new suburb and the people within it.

Shot on the Sony Nex with the Sigma 30mm lens, I only slightly adjusted the levels before resizing to publish.

I’m also working my way through the 35mm film I took to the music festival yesterday. I initially thought I had a 24/27 shot film, but it must be a 36, so not too much longer until I can develop!

After a fairly packed weekend, I managed to take some time out later this afternoon and take the bike up to Long Bay Regional Park. The weather was nice, and a large number of people were spread throughout the beach and grass sections of the park. I went for a stroll around the nature walk area, which was void of any people!

On the way there I came across this tree, blossoming for the spring weather. Against all the other evergreens, it stood out.

In post processing I selectively desaturated several colour, adjusted the contrast and sharpness and resized.

Tag: Long Bay

Logs sitting, waiting

Swallows Take Flight

Construct Zone

The Tree with Red Flowers