St. Luke's Anglican Church

Fisheye lens view of St. Luke's Anglican Church in Manurewa.

I must admit to being more that a little intrigued with the history of my local town, Manurewa, here in New Zealand.  You may recall an earlier post about Orford Lodge?  Orford Lodge was the second home of the lawyer Mr. Edward Russell after whom Russell Road is named.  Mr. Russell's first home, "Sunlands", used to be accessed via a long driveway from Russell Road, but it now has a reduced section size and is just another house amongst many others in a South Auckland sub-division.  I was going to take some photographs of the building, but as it is now a private residence I wanted permission first.  It's certainly interesting to see the similarity in style between Orford Lodge and Sunlands.

Vertical fisheye view of St. Luke's Church

Besides having two houses built in a similar style there was also an Anglican church built that has a similar appearance.  I found it quite interesting to see the same style of exterior wall and window in the two houses and church.  This church still stands today and in this post I've added a few images for your amusement.  There is an early photograph of the church from the 1920's that may interest you.  The church seems very similar now to back in the 1920's.  The trees are considerably larger now and the building seems also to have grown in length!

I suspect there are a few more buildings of interest in Manurewa, but they're a little hard to find!  However, should I find anymore I'll be sure to post some images on here.

Orford Lodge

Orford Lodge, Manurewa

Quite a surprise to see such a lovely old building amongst the more modern buildings in the Hillpark area of Manurewa.  Built in 1910 by the lawyer Mr. Edward Russell this building carries the name of its 1928 purchaser, the Earl of Orford.  Interesting to note that the Earl of Orford was a descendant of Sir Robert Walpole, the first Prime Minister of England.  Not just an ordinary house then, but one with quite a bit of history associated with the people who have lived here as well as the structure itself!

The grounds to Orford Lodge were quite extensive at over 20 acres and a team of up to nine gardeners would maintain the immaculate grounds.  I'm not sure what happened to the gardens during the war as both the lodge and grounds were used by the US Army.  The gardeners cottage and "garage" was used as the officers' mess and apparently many of the officers' signatures remain on the fireplace.

The attached image to this post is a five shot HDR image processed in Photomatix Pro and then antiquated thanks to Silver Efex Pro.

Wenderholm for a change

A somewhat gloomy Wenderholm beach

Arriving at Wenderholm we had high hopes of a lovely warm sunny day at the beach.  As you can see from the first shot, it was somewhat moody and cloudy.  Lots of lovely textures both in the rocks, the windswept pools of water and, of course, the clouds.  Whilst composing the first image you see in this post I could only think of a monochrome shot.  Perhaps let me know what you think?

As the day progressed it became brighter.

As the day progressed the sun came out a little more and things started to brighten up.  there remained lots of drama in the clouds and, to be honest, the sea was quite a way out, so I thought I'd stick with monochrome for the second image.  I was really taken with the textures and patterns in the sand in the foreground and felt a monochrome treatment would work well with this.  You can just make out my son and daughter paddling in the sea centre right of the image.

Truth be told, as the day progressed it just got better.  Wenderholm is quite a lovely place to visit should you ever get the chance and I managed lunch at one of my favourite lookouts.  We were fortunate to visit during the week when most other folks are busy at work - great time to visit the parks and beaches!!  The last shot in this post was taken from close-by my lunchtime picnic table, and, as you see by the use of colour now, the day didn't turn out too badly at all!

Quite a nice spot for a bit of lunch.

A little bit of cropping.

Clematis climbing over an old fence.

I'm often somewhat frustrated my my inability to crop images yet retain good detail in the cropped photograph.  These two images are a good case in point.  The first image was taken with the longest focal length that I have, 200mm.  I can get some contrast detail between the flowers and the fence, but I would have liked to get a bit closer to the flowers to emphasise their detail and structure.

I often like to get an overall image of the plant, and then more detailed shots.  However, when the overall shot was taken with the greatest focal length lens that I own, the only other option available to me is to upscale and crop.

This is where the second image comes in.  The second image in this post is a crop of the flowers you see in the first shot.  Nothing else changed, yet it seems a totally different image.  Something to consider perhaps before you trash your image is that with a simple crop you may have something rather more pleasing to the eye.  Just a thought :-)

Crop of first image to present more detail in the flowers.