Summer is here in NZ and the post Christmas iffy weather looks to be mostly behind us. A few people got the same idea to cool off at Takapuna Beach on the North Shore of Auckland today.
Panorama shot on Galaxy S5 mobile.
Summer Sun at the Beach
Summer 2015
Summer 2015
View to Island in the Sun
After what has been a not so bad, but long feeling winter, I think Summer is on the way!
Auckland Botanic Gardens (part1)
A beautiful hot day took us to the Auckland Botanic Gardens for a walk today. 64-hectare’s and home to over 10,000 plants, we only scratched the surface with todays visit. Although its been around in some form since the 1960’s (I think), I had never been before, from memory.
Beautifully set and maintained, the crowds in the car park flooding out onto the road suggested its popularity. Funnily enough, once in and walking around the park, although obviously not alone, one didn’t feel crowded in the masses.
Throughout the park is tables and benches for picnic’s, and plenty of great shaded trees to escape the sun.
I went along with the Olympus E-500 DSLR today and captured a range of shots. I’ll show the flowers in another post, but below is a few more samples of the park.
The busy Pollinator
Ive been reading a little about bees and their rapid decline in recent years. Some blame global warming, others natural viruses and bugs, many also blame the various insecticides we are using on our mass producing crops around the world. I probably lean towards the later after reading a number of books about the various things we are pumping into our supposedly natural food sources.
Blame aside, I don’t think anyone is denying the massively important role the humble bee plays in pollinating many of the foods of our world (not to forget the awesome sweet honey they supply!).
Did you know the smallest bee species is about 2.1mm long(!) and the largest variety jumps to a whopping 39mm in length. Found on every continent in the world excluding Antarctica, these mighty insects have a better sniffer sense than dogs, and early studies show they might even be able to be trained to detect cancer. Pretty awesome.
Im hoping we see some more bees in the garden now summers on its way. Here’s some more facts about bees for those interested.
Little Flowers in the Sun
Beautiful hot day today. Caught this snap outside my property fence. Think these are technically weeds, but nice flowers!
The Plant by the House
Things have been busy this last month or so. More and more have I found that I have had limited time to add written text to my images, or thoughts and reflections loosely relating to them. The limited free time will pass as we come out the other side of some big changes at work, but it has been a bit of a push managing to post each day.
Aside from a bit of a weather bomb approaching this week, New Zealand is well and truly coming into Spring and fast approaching summer. The deciduous trees around my property (which seem like an oddly large amount since I have strong childhood memories of all the evergreens in Auckland) are sprouting new fresh green leaves, and the newly plotted vege garden is showing signs of life with seeds sprouting around the seedlings I planted.
As with last year, at the end of this month I will be taking part in the Auckland half marathon. Also as with last year, my training has not managed to kick in yet… I guess at the very least I will have a measure on my natural fitness again (and if I dont make it, I will know thats dropped to unacceptable levels!)
Well look at that. Three paragraphs. My time must be freeing up already!
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.
Birthdays and Handball
Another quick ‘on the run’ photo day.
Some kids chalk, a ball and group of friends resulted in a round of Kiwi rules handball 4 square. – remembering our younger days!
Image shot on samsung galaxy s2 and shot using vignette.
Oi!
I’m pretty sure ‘Oi!’ was the seagulls statement at me as I snapped him in this photo the other day in town.
Summer is sure on its way in Auckland these last few days – of course having faulty air-conditioning at work, taking us to 28+ degrees helps, as does running around in level 2’s in the evening.
Image wise, snapped on the Sony Nex and edited in Gimp. Editing consisted of cropping to square format, desaturating all but the red, and bumping up the sharpening slightly.
As Mondays often are, its been a long day, so I will aim for more tomorrow.
MikeHawkey.com 