Farewell Bangkok

Although I have countless more images from Bangkok, today can be the last, so we can move up north a little next time. Something I love to see in cities I have visited is the contrast between old and new. Todays top image is of just as such – a old rundown building (I think still inhabited) contrasting on the more modern cityscape. It reminds me of those movies where someone holds onto their house whilst the world grows up around it. I think here in Auckland (the central city area) land and building value is too high to see something quite like this (but to be fair, there are some old ones off main roads).

Like many cities, Bangkok offers a host of was to get around for the tourist. Walk (the most traditional), Taxi (sooo cheap on the metered ones when traffic flowing), Tuk Tuk(more expensive than taxi’s – I’ll do a feature on them some time) or the train network. I loved how the train (and walking) overpass spread across the city above the roads:

I was also intrigued by the seemingly hazardous mains power system (Bangkok much better than some other districts).

Farewell Bangkok

April 17, 2014 2

Warkworth Prison

Whilst I did manage to get some picture taking in today, it was of someone at work for an article, so I wont feature it here. So- another archive image. A scene from the old Warkworth Prison… well holding rooms from the old village police officer days. Moved and displayed at the Warkworth Museum, it paints a fairly basic, yet not surprising look at the local shack you may have once found yourself locked up in back in the day if you committed a nuisance. Constructed almost entirely of wood (pretty heavy wood), it did have a small iron bar window on the front door.

Shot on the Ricoh, I added heavy vignette in CS5 and desaturated the image a little.

March 6, 2013 2

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

Intoxication

Today’s photo, freshly scanned from the archives takes me back 14 years. Learning on my first SLR camera, a Seagull DF-300 and self developing B&W film. I submitted a 4 sided board for my UE/ 7th form Photography, themed ‘Intoxication’. I was quite into experimenting with double and triple exposures, and successfully showed a self portrait journey from sober to intoxicated. Whilst I scored well in the finals, I always remember having to keep my work hidden from the Headmaster as my teacher was not sure what they would make of my topic at the time. This particular image was from about 3/4 of the way in and I had about 50 images self printed from small A6 size, up to A3.

I’ve been on a bit of a path of late getting all my film records into a digital medium. I think the ability to keep multiple backups gives a sense of security in case of the ‘what if’. As well as this, I recently won an online auction for a Seagull DF-300 SLR. A direct copy of the Minolta (made in the same factory and licensed), the nostalgic need, and regret of selling my first one…coupled with the low price meant I could not say no!

Ive also been cleaning up my very well used (by previous owners) Ricoh Singlex TLS. It has a lot of brass showing through the worn paint, but operates great still. I’m looking forward to capturing some images on both units. I still need to use my new soviet lens on the nex also – likely this weekend!

August 3, 2012 0

Into The Air

Taken on my Fed1 35mm rangefinder, I chose todays image because it really felt like it was taken on an old camera. This is the only shot I got when in the plane over the weekend, and with a estimated exposure in harsh lighting (above the white clouds) I do quite like it.

I did a bit of research into my Fed1 when I originally brought it. Its dated ~1951, making it pretty old. I gave it a quick CLA and am impressed how well it functions. Compared to many newer rangefinders and SLR film cameras, they are very compact cameras – especially with the collapsing lens – it literally can fit in a trouser pocket. A soviet copy of the Leica II, they are in function close to identical. Its often regarded that they are not up to the same manufacturing quality, but to be honest, they are still pretty good if cared for, and dont have any plastic parts, so really are better then a host of later cameras anyway.

All that aside, I find it enjoyable to shoot with such an old piece of machinery that was precision built. In its ~60 years of life one would imagine a camera has seen a lot of sights and has its own story to tell. It also reminds me how easy we have it now – the Fed’s lack of lightmeter, dual composition windows, manual everything…

July 26, 2012 0