photos and other things…
As mentioned yesterday, work took me on a fun little outing on Friday to the lake and sand dunes but Bethells Beach on Aucklands West Coast. Over the next few days I’ll narrate my photos from the trip.
A 10 minute walk through open scrub land, off Bethells Road (heading to Bethells Beach) we hit the giant sand dunes of Lake Wainamu.
Formed around 400 thousands of years ago, these dunes are an impressive sight as one breaks through the bush.
The forecast weather bomb did not arrive yesterday evening as predicted and I managed to get over to town and walk the Franklin Road Christmas lights show. Celebrating its 20th year now, every Christmas a large number of the residents of this inner city area deck out their houses with a vast array of lights, models and even choreographed music at times! The crowds are generally very busy for the week its on – last night being no exception. Whilst driving up and down is an option, its much quicker to park the car and walk it as traffic is at a standstill – and then if you do manage to get your car on the road, you cant stop to look at houses at your leisure.
I only had my Jupiter-8 with me on my Sony (well, and my phone – but they are not so great for night shots), and found the 75mm equivalent quite tight framing wise with the crowds of people. I think today’s chosen shot was a nice balance of showing the colours of the lights, with the mass of people walking up and down. Hand-held (as usual) I was shooting at 3200iso and 1/50th sec.
Editing wise, in Gimp, I adjusted the levels and colour balance a little, sharpened a notch and resized.
Today of course also marks Christmas Eve! – I think as a child, I always found the 24th to be more exciting than the 25th! – I have fond memories of looking under the lit up Christmas tree at presents and looking forward to the whole extended family coming around the next day. My parents had a fake tree (which will please some and not others) that they still use to this day. <y mother has a blow up Santa from when she was young (although he needs an air top-up a little more now days). Now, with my childhood well behind me, its still an exciting time to head back to the family home and see all the family together. The odd present does not hurt either!
And whilst getting excited and celebrating, I also pay a thought to those for whom this is not the best time of the year. People in hardship or alone can really find this a difficult time. Although not for everyone, it is great to see various community groups putting on events on Christmas day where people can get a nice meal, be around others and have some cheer spread.
Right, time to put out the cookies and milk…
I took a big walk in the CBD area today, searching out places I have no memory of going, or had not been for a good many years. One such place was the Symonds Street Cemetery. Now a historic parks area, I found it quite fascinating, with mixed emotions.
Established in 1842, by Western New Zealand terms, this is a very old graveyard, home to many early Auckland settlers, and several people of notable title. From the road, the cemetery is selectively maintained, but as you walk in and dwell a little deeper, nature really has taken over.
On one hand it is sad to see this history being cracked up, overturn and overgrown, but from another perspective, its almost the ultimate return to nature. I cant say I have placed much thought on where I want to end up at end of days, but I don’t think I would be that upset if after a century passes I have been engulfed by a tall tree that was once a shrub by my headstone.
Walking through the Cemetery I saw a number of homeless, or evidence of them staying there. A tent hidden in the overgrown wild bush being one of the more ‘high class’ establishments. Parts of the lower cemetery, where the highway has cut across, had been used for a dumping ground of tyres. Everywhere I went there was evidence of gravestones that had fallen into disrepair, or literally been absorbed into bush and tree as the forest took over. One other thing I found interesting is how the city also has ‘overgrown’ over the graveyard. Grafton Bridge, a tall two lane vehicle bridge cuts over the graveyard- leaving but inches over a number of headstones, and likely meant relocating a number more.
For those in the CBD looking for a walk, I highly recommend it. There are a number of tracks one can explore, and although I made mention of vagrants, I have never had an issue with such folk as long as you are respectful (there was only a handful anyway). Its a beautiful inner city bush. As the cemetery is divided into two with Symonds street breaking it down the middle, I will likely visit the other half another day when I head that way.
Photo wise, taken on the Ricoh GRD IV with bleach bypass, all I did with post in Gimp was crop the aspect a little and resize for web.
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…
The weather looked like it would pack in my late afternoon today, so we got out the house for a beach stroll before it did (and it did just after we got home). I headed out with my GRD IV and R10 Ricoh’s – mostly with the intention to shoot film, but also to capture something for today’s posting.
It appeared many other had the same intention, and with the tide low we walked along some of the coastline, between beaches. Today’s image, from the GRD IV, was taken in its colour bleach mode. In Gimp I cropped in the black header/footer, re-boosted colour a little and resized .
When I got home I remembered I was going to try out my new Nex lens, but it will have to wait for another day now.
We had some more great weather today, so after some tidying around the house I managed to go for a several hour walk. I brought along my Nex 5N and two of my old legacy lenses – the Industar 61 and Jupiter 11. Todays image ‘Air Brakes’ was captured on the Jupiter 11, a 135mm soviet lens, which equates to about a 200mm lens when coupled with a APS-C sensor like that on the Nex. For the price, its a nice old lens that I have spoke about before. I think I will take it apart and re-lube when I get some time as its a bit stiff to focus, which makes all the difference when focusing on moving targets.
In post editing, I did crop the photo, both to remove a branch in the left, and also to give a larger shot of the bird. Shot in .jpg, I wish I had been also saving in raw as it would have given me some more detail to play with.
I have a Juipter-8 on the way from Ukraine also and cant wait to give it a run on the Nex (and some 35mm rangefinders) as I have read some positive things about it, most suggesting its a better lens then the Industar 61 (which I like anyway).
MikeHawkey.com 