Tag: WWII

Te Henui Fallen

Te Henui CemetaryDuring my stay in New Plymouth, one afternoon (~3 hours of it) was spent walking and exploring the Te Henui Walkway. Starting from the coast, it follows the river and weaves up through suburbia, a small bush covered belt.

Half way along we hit the cemetery. I was surprised to see so many war veteran graves, mounted in beautiful symmetry over the wavy ground. As far as cemeteries go, it was a beautiful restful spot.

At the edge, the track again dove into the bush and remet the river. I followed it up until suburbia took over, and I was back on the road.

Shot on the GRD, resized in Gimp.

 

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Stairs to Freedom

Stairs to freedom

In today’s post, Stairs to Freedom, I wanted to create that visual experience we all get when adjusting to different light sources. Be it turning on/off a light in the middle of the night, or coming out of a dark tunnel into bright daylight as in this image. The eyes take a moment to adjust to the differing light. Until then things are not quite clear.

Today’s image was shot in one of the old tunnels used for WWII. Coming from the other side, ones eyes slowly adjust to the darkness, only to turn a corner and be greeted by a staircase with bright light shining down.

Shot on the Sony Nex with a old legacy Industar 61 lens, using Gimp I converted to B&W, added a light vignette and adjusted the levels.

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Welcoming the New Year

Welcome 2013

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.

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