Red Sky Morning
The old phrase ‘red sky in the morning, shepherds warning’ (or sailors depending on your upbringing and geographical location) appears to be ringing true today as I await the cyclone that is Lusi on its way to New Zealand.
We have been told to cancel upcoming weekend activities outdoors, prepare for a king tide, massive coastal weather, possible flooding, high winds and power cuts. Its always so surreal when a large storm approaches. The air changes. Things go still. Most animals seem to know something is coming.
I enjoy weather extremes. Within limits. All going well, I will try to get out in some of it and take in the amazing power that is mother nature. Going not so well, I’ll stay inside.
As I write the breeze is mellow. News reports its already picking up at the top of the country, so its just a small wait now…
Project Mini
A photo, and project from the archives today. Although I have not done much of recent, in the past I almost always had a project car on the go. Todays image was of my old 1975 Mini Clubman 1000. The second Mini project I have completed, it started life (well started for me) as a somewhat run down blue Clubman (I might feature a before/after or project post one day). After driving it around for a day (initially it was just going to be a runabout), I stripped it down to a bare shell and started the restoration.
Image wise, I am not sure what camera I used at the time. Possibly a fuji superzoom, but my image on file is a tiny 600×800, so smaller than my usual down sized posts. Editing, I desaturated all but the red of the Mini.
The Old Engine
Motat is full of old machinery – from stem tractors to 70’s cars. Whilst all was of interest to me,one of the more interesting sections was of the old New Zealand Fire Service. Here, in a makeshift station they displayed several vehicles of old, as well as various fire fighting equipment, now long out of date. Today’s photo is of an engine that served Auckland’s CBD, and later in life with the volunteers at Devonport station. For a service vehicle, its in beautiful condition & quite a stand-out with its chrome hood.
Editing wise, in Gimp, I slightly cropped, added a vignette and applied the National Geographic plug-in. Following this I removed several of the plug-in layers.
Image was shot on the Sony Nex.
Caution
For Health and Safety reasons we had a caution sign put on our hot water urn at work recently. It got me thinking about how much aspects of the world have changed in the last decade or so. When I was young my dad would take me to the surf beach where I would tumble about in the waves. I know people who wont go there now as its too dangerous. There was a three story playground near my Grandmas house – I passed it a while ago and the top floor has been removed, the second floor fenced in…we used to climb on the roof and I never heard of a kid falling. Rope swings were on trees on hills – giving kids a terrifying rush when they held on with all their might…now the trees have been cut down due to danger risks.
Have we taken safety and caution so far that we are preventing people/kids from learning lessons any more? I cant help but think so.
Image wise, using my mobile phone and Vignette I was drawn to the urn for the simple and washed look. Black, white and red. The days sun coming from the left and casting the shadow of the urn and bareness otherwise leaves a simple, yet thoughtful image reflecting my above thoughts. In post processing with Gimp I cropped for the net and added an extra 1/4 to the left of the image to almost square the image and create the composition I was initially after.
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.
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