photos and other things…
The Ants
Douglas Florian
Ants are scantily
Half an inch long,
But for their size
They’re very strong.
Ants tote leaves
Five times their weight
Back to their nest
At a speedy rate.
They walk on tree limbs
Upside down
A hundred feet
Above the ground,
While down below
Beneath a mound
They’re building tunnels
Underground.
And so it’s been
And it will be
Since greatest
Ant antiquity.
Sony Nex and Jupiter 8 lens in hand, we headed out for a walk after a long day at work, to catch the last of the days light. In stark contrast to the heavy rain and wind yesterday, today was clear blue and still. I was amazed how still it was on the water, mirror clear and still. Looking down the cliff from where we walked, I captured the fallen tree, sitting so softly in the water, it almost looked like the sky.
Todays image brings my One Tree Hill/Cornwall Park series to a close. The building in view is the local hospital, once known as National Womens. Many mothers when there back in the day to have their children. It was not always practice that the father/husband could come into the birthing area with the mum to be. With One Tree Hill just behind, some fathers to be may have taken a stroll up to this point, listening to the lambs and eagerly awaiting their own youngster!
As this post goes live, it also signals the end of my Easter break. All going well, I’ll be back tomorrow with some new images from where I went. Catch you then!
Another ‘Tree on the Hill’ on One Tree Hill. Looking North, I snapped this, just enjoying the tree against the clear sky and the gradually curved mound – about 4/5’s of the way down the hill and back into Cornwall Park.
Shot on the Sony Nex, edited in Gimp.
Moving up past the tree in yesterdays posting, the view down towards the southern side of Cornwall Park starts to show our elevation, with sheep turning into small ant size…sheep.
As mentioned yesterday, One tree Hill is covered in Trees. However, back in the day, it had a big tree on the summit of the hill. Visually recognisable from miles around, the tree was cut down in 1852 by the ‘white settler’ either for fire wood, or as an act of vandalism. Sir Campbell attempted to plant new native trees on the summit (Totara being the preference for its cultural value), but they did not survive, and in the 1870’s two radiata pines were planted and grew. Along came the 1960’s and again one tree was felled (but is ok, there was still one left!). We then reach the 1990’s and the surviving tree was subject to a number of attacks from Maori activists (I won’t go into great detail here, but the activists were making a point about injustices from the past). Sadly (regardless of which side of the fence one sits with the activist points), in 2000, after a second attack, the tree was deemed a danger, and a lost cause recovery wise and was felled.
(more tomorrow)
Shot on the Sony Nex and edited in Gimp.
Moving to a more southern point of Cornwall park from yesterday, and slowly progressing up One Tree Hill, I shot todays image ‘Tree on the Side’. Although known as One Tree Hill (or Maungakiekie, or Te Totara i Ahua to local Maori), the hill itself is covered in trees (more about that in the next few days).
Even halfway up the hill here, the view of the surrounding land is both far and wide. Its no surprise that Maori once had a Pa site (village – often with a defensive aspect to it) here! – all around you would be able to see the comings and goings of people.
As with yesterday, the area is populated now with sheep.
Shot on the Sony Nex and edited in Gimp.
I got talking with a guy I sold a camera to today. Like myself, he had a collection of both film and digital cameras – the film being anything from 35mm to large format. One thing we discussed was how far the level of digital photography, or I should say its quality has come.
For the average (and non average) Joe, many of our images are either displayed on TV and computer screens, or perhaps a handful printed out. Often, they are shared on various online forums, blogs and sites at a much reduced quality than produced by the camera (for example, my first 2MP camera makes bigger prints than my resize size for my posts). Aside from some particularly nice monitors, your average TV screen is far below the quality of your average camera.
Sure, the non branded cameras can be of a lower quality, but even the average smart phone captures a decent image no days.
When specials come up on A3 and A2 photo canvases I like to grab one to print out a recent personal favourite. Looking around my room, 3/4 of all my A2 canvases were taken on my Ricoh GRD IV. Arguably it has a fantastic prime lens, perhaps one of the best for compacts, but the ‘film’ (aka sensor) is still an older CCD 1/1.8″ (larger than many compacts, but still tiny).
I guess at the end of the day, today’s rant is really just a self reminder, and a thinking point to others out there asking the question “do I/you really need to upgrade?” there are always arguments in the ‘for’ category (low light capability perhaps one), but for those of us who remember film days, we have far exceeded some of the limits film placed upon us – maybe its just a case of knowing your camera(s) and their capabilities and pushing that, rather than reaching for the next new model?
Oh – and today’s image! – Shot on my Sony Nex5N, kit lens. In post using Gimp I pushed up the saturation a little. Felt like some colour!
For the first few days of this week I am out near the Auckland Airport attending a work conference. I had a few hours to kill between the last talk to dinner time, so went for a bit of a stroll. Being stuck indoors all day I had no idea of the weather outside. The low flat geographic surroundings of the airport no doubt assisted in the chilly temperature as the sun slowly sank past the horizon.
I found a nice little walking track that seemed to pass through some farm land. Surrounded by flax bush, I reached an opening and came across an attractive, close to silhouette of a tree and captured a few images on my Ricoh.
I’m not sure why, but often when I am taking nature shots, unless it is capturing a massive and wide scenic area , I almost always tend to capture nature in portrait format. This, in some peoples books, breaks one of the shooting rules. It comes without much thought – I think mostly because I am looking to ‘zone in’ on a particular area (the tree in today’s image), and also that I like the feeling of a vast, wide sky above.
Its been a long day, so perhaps I will sleep on it and give it some more thought later on…
Last night we had a massive storm with thunder and lightening that seemed never ending. I woke this morning to a clear blue sky, and what turned out to be a reasonably warm day. One can definitely tell spring is on its way.
I had hoped to shoot a roll of film on my little Olympus Mju 1 today, and did get 5 shots off before it was dropped and run over by a dodgem. Alas it did not survive the incident and I’m left mourning this fantastic compact cameras passing. I have transferred the film into my Ricoh R10, so hopefully those last 5 images can be saved at least.
Today’s image was snapped several days ago on my GRD IV in bleach mode. Resized in Gimp, otherwise untouched, it was the perfect mourning and spring is on its way image for the day!
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.
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