Beach Migration

New Zealand, being fairly isolated on a country scale, has a vast history of migrating. The indigenous group of New Zealand, The Maori have legends of the great Waka that brought them to New Zealand from Hawaiki. Some time later the European discoverers came to the South Seas of the Pacific – Abel Tasman,and most notably Captain Cook. Soon enough people from England (and other areas of Europe) came to the brave new land and settled. Skip forward a few hundred years (we are a fairly young country) and we still see people coming to New Zealand for its beautiful lifestyle.

As a side, this got me thinking about passports and the process involved in moving from place to place. If anyone has any interesting articles/books on when exactly the world was divided up to the level one needed ID and permission to move from one land to another please add a comment. We take it as the norm now, but it cannot have always been such.

Todays image, ‘Beach Migration’, influenced by my thoughts, is of a group of paddle boarders of Aucklands Takapuna Beach. Cutting out the beach in the foreground, I wanted to create some form of impression that they are heading to Rangitoto Island.

Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV and edited in the OSX version of Gimp 2.8

February 22, 2013 0

Lion Rock, Piha

For visitors to Piha, the most memorable, or at least recognisable part of the area is the famous Lion Rock. a 16 million year old piece of volcanic neck standing ~101 metres high. It got its name from the shape of a sitting lion when viewed from the south of the beach (left in the photo).

Over the years Lion rock has claimed a number of lives – both from people falling, and also from those fishing off the dangerous yet rewarding rocks of the unforgiving surf beach. As a child I recall the terror of climbing to the top up a (at least what felt to be) dodgy eroding track. The reward once at the top was a magnificent view (and sandwich with Piha black sand stuck in it somehow). In the late 1990’s, there was a significant landslide with the double tragic result of dis-forming the lion a little, and preventing all but foolish risk takers from now climbing to the summit (another example of tragedy).

Now days one can climb up about 2/3’rds of the rock where you will reach a Maori stone and blessing of the area and valued rock. You may also be able to make out a small plaque near the middle of the base with the roll of honour for WW1 soldiers from the local area.

There is something special about Lion Rock for me & I love photographing it. One day I will get the perfect shot of it (for me)…one day.

Image wise, it was shot on the Sony Nex, with duo-tone filters and edited in Gimp. I adjusted the levels, added a vignette and converted to B&W.

Some more Piha tomorrow probably!

January 10, 2013 0

Welcoming the New Year

After limited sleep following the midnight welcoming of 2013, today welcomed a hot sunny and beautiful day to Auckland. With many of the shops closed for the public holiday (sadly not all for the retail and essentials workers) masses went to the beaches for a near perfect midday high tide.

Being New Zealand’s largest city, the Christmas/New Year period is always a little interesting in Auckland. People often leave town to go on their summer vacation. As a result the roads are generally a little quieter, and for those of us who stay (in reality the vast majority I’m sure), as long as you are not shopping in things like the boxing day rush, it feels like the city has itself taken a break.

I mentioned resolutions in yesterdays posting. No doubt around the world many people are waking up today with new goals and intentions. I cant say I made any specific ones at this stage. I have been suffering from a bad back of recent, so I think one goal will be to sort that out more!

Photo wise, todays image was shot at North Head on the North Shore, looking towards Bastion Point. Both North Head and Bastion point historically have been used by locals since Auckland (or pre-Auckland) was populated. In early pre-european times, local Maori had Pa (fortified villages) on these sites. Later they were used for WWII operations. In the late 1970’s Bastion Point was part of a land protest (it had been taken from Maori from the crown earlier) and eventually in the 1980’s given back to the local Iwi (local group/tribe). North Head is now looked after by the Department of Conservation, and open for all to explore the old WW tunnels and various tracks and pathways.

The only post processing for today’s image was putting on the rounded corners after resizing. Image was shot on the Ricoh GRD IV.

I have also been trying to finish off a few films. One in my Ricoh GR1, and the other in my newly acquired Pentax MG. I must say, the Pentax is a really nice SLR to use. Very light and compact and fits into the hand well. It does loose manual shutter control (although one can adjust ev compensation and film speed to work with this), but all else is manual. When I have finished either I will develop and hopefully have some interesting shots to share.

January 1, 2013 2

Mt Eden and the City

Finishing work in town this evening, with traffic on the motorways already banked up, I took a quick trip to see the view from Mt Eden. As I may have mentioned before, Auckland is surrounded by volcanic cones (around 50 volcanic cones) – Mt Eden’s being in the foreground of this image. Although popular for children to go rolling down several decades ago, Mt Eden has both archaeological importance and local Maori sacredness brought to the public’s awareness in recent years and the crater itself is technically a no-go zone. Behind the crater we can see a view of Aucklands CBD, and behind that, the North Shore and western suburbs.

Editing wise, using Gimp, I added a vignette, adjusted the levels and applied a ‘film grain’ filter.

November 27, 2012 0

Stairing up a Kauri

Today was jam packed with car and motorbike repairs. No exactly as enjoyable as heading out to take some shots, but more essential at this point in time. ‘Stairing up a Kauri’ is another shot from Fridays trip. This particular tree in question is ‘The McKinney Kauri’. At an estimated 800 years old, its about 12m to the first low lying branch! Getting the whole tree into a shot meant going quite far back, even with my 28mm Ricoh. When I did this it looked like a well proportioned tree, and not really of the height it is. I like this shot as its both an unusual perspective, but also a common thing to do when you get up close to it. Although an argued point, when this Kauri was a little stick in the ground, New Zealand was just being settled by the Maori. The Children’s Crusade marched in France. The first permanent photograph was still half a century away!

Shot on the Ricoh GRD IV, reduced for web size/quality in Gimp.

July 1, 2012 0