An avenue ...

 ... a road having having trees at regular intervals along its sides.  I think they're lovely.  Wonderful dappled light and often quite cool.  There's a lovely avenue of oak trees in Cornwall Park, but of special interest is the plaque at the start of the avenue.

Commemorative plaque in Cornwall Park, Auckland.

It's entitled "The Trees" and it is inscribed thus,

They who plant an avenue of trees cannot in the nature of things hope to enjoy them in their maturity and grandeur.  They plant for generations unborn.  Much that we have and prize today comes to us from our fathers.  they did not make or build to last their time but rather that something worthy should mark their passage and be their memorial.

Makes you think a little doesn't it?  In this world in which we live I seem to be finding fewer people with the attitudes of the avenue designers and planters of old.  No real thought for tomorrow,  just the here and now and most things are disposable rather than maintainable and repairable.  Somewhat sad really ... or is this just progress?

Besides lovely trees and views there's also Acacia Cottage which has the distinction of being Auckland's oldest timber building.  Quite a bit to see and enjoy at Cornwall Park really!

One of the many fine specimen trees in Cornwall Park.

Acacia Cottage in Cornwall Park.

Looking towards Auckland City's Skytower from Cornwall Park.

Car park view.

Carpark rooftop view, Auckland, New Zealand

I must admit that when matters medical arise I prefer to leave.  Today I was required to visit the hospital for a checkup which didn't exactly fill me with glee.  Thankfully, all is good, so the visit was short and sweet.  Just the way I like it!  Parking on the top floor of the hospital carpark afford some rather pleasant views however, so I thought I'd take a few images to share with you folks.

Looking towards Skytower from Auckland's Hospital

I took a fisheye lens with which I must admit to finding exposures awkward.  As a result I usually bracket the shots, and then ... well ... they usually end up being processed in Photomatix Pro.  That's what's happened here.  I often find the clouds look VERY ominous and black with a very heavy and dark feel to them.  Hopefully they're not too bad in these images.

Looking across to the city from the carpark I can't help thinking some night time shots with all the tower blocks illuminated may be a good idea one day.

No tripod today, but plenty of things on which to rest the camera ;-)

Mellons Bay

Mellons Bay Reserve, Howick, New Zealand

I couldn't decide whether to take my camera or not.  When going to the shops I never like to leave things in the car, and I often feel a bit self conscious when I'm doing some shopping with bags of camera gear in tow.  Problem was, if the shopping finished early I might miss a photo' op'.  In the end I took the D300 and a 12-24mm lens.  The shopping was quick - just the way I like it and I did have about 10 minutes spare time before I had to collect my son from school.  Great excuse to head down to Mellons Bay and see if there was anything worth shooting.

In some ways I was disappointed that I hadn't brought a longer lens as the light on Rangitoto was really quite lovely.  Rangitito is the green volcano you'll see in the distance.  The clouds were lovely and, to be honest, I could have stayed a lot longer if I wasn't required to collect my son.  Maybe next time I have to collect him I'll take a picnic and stay a little longer ;-)

I'll close this post with a few more images from my brief pause at Mellons Bay.

Downtown

Old Government House, Auckland, New Zealand

I've been meaning to do this for some time now, and for some reason it's just never happened.  Well, that all changed this morning and I managed to get into Auckland City just to relax and take some photos.  I've been quite busy over the past couple of weeks and must admit to feeling more than a little frustrated with the photographs I've been taking of late.  I don't know if it's tiredness, lack of inspiration or just being bogged down with other things, but many of my photographic efforts have been pretty "ho-hum" and I felt I needed something to give myself a bit of a kick.  I can't say I was impressed with today's efforts, but I could sense a change in mood and attitude and could feel myself starting to look at things a little differently.  Perhaps another trip later this week will help a little more?

I took just two lenses.  Nikkor 12-24mm f4 and the Samyang 8mm f3.5 fisheye.  I also took a tripod - always a good idea :-)  The car was parked in Parnell and then I walked up to the University.  There's some lovely old buildings near the University, so I thought that may be a good place to start.  I've been meaning to take photographs of Auckland's old buildings for some time now, and hopefully this year may see the start of that project.  I'll keep you posted!  After a delicious coffee on campus I took refuge from the rain in the library, then headed towards the Old Government House.  I've seen this place before, but never really paid much attention to it.  More fool me!  This building is quite a treasure.  Taking your time provides opportunities to chat to people and observe your surroundings.  According to the gardeners the Queen stayed here with her family and a young Prince Charles played on the lawn you can see in the first image in this post.  It was a no go area for the locals, but that has all changed now and you can go into the building, soak up the atmosphere and get a coffee and muffin should you feel so inclined.  I must admit it brought back memories of Manchester's town hall!

Auckland's Old Government House

The grounds are quite lovely and well worth taking time out and enjoying a wander through.  If you pop over in the next month or two the roses will be in full flower and I can only image what that will look like.  Maybe I'll see you there!!

One of the issues with which I've been frustrated is getting a wide angle shot without distortion.  Part of today's exercise was to use wide angle lenses and then see if, by choice of angle when taking the shot or in post processing I could perhaps remove the distortion in the image.  Besides getting curved verticals, I was also keen to see if I could correct the effect you often see when a building looks like it's falling backwards.  I really wanted verticals to be vertical and parallel, but how much would Capture NX2 or Photoshop let me "correct"? Also, how great an effect did my selected viewpoint have on the image.

Liveview was great for these experiments as I could raise and lower my tripod and change angles of view.  Sometimes there's just nowhere to go and the building looks like it's falling over, but Photoshop does provide a pretty good range of "correction" options.  Shots three and four may give you an idea of my feeble attempts at straightening the shot.  My Camera was on a tripod and I tried to line up my verticals with the left edge of the clock tower.  The effect of this was that other verticals have become less than vertical!  Check out the leaning lamp post for example.  After a quick tweak in Photoshop my verticals look a little better.

University Clock Tower ... original

University Clock Tower ... straightened

I also made a few changes to the first two images (also taken with the Nikkor 12-24mm)  in this post in an attempt to make the verticals vertical.  The next question was how much correction could I achieve with the 8mm Samyang?  I must admit to not holding out much hope, but perhaps let me know what you think?  Shot 5 was taken with the Samyang and isn't too bad from a distortion point of view.  Things look a little odd on the building to the left of the image and I suspect this would be corrected if the camera was raised a little more.  Using the Samyang I find I get easier to correct distortion if I have the horizon smack in the middle of the image ... that is not looking up or looking down onto the subject.  In the fifth shot I'm looking up slightly, hence the greater degree of distortion.

Auckland's Old Government House, 8mm Samyang Fisheye.

I'll leave you with another shot taken with the Nikkor 12-24mm looking towards the clock tower.

Auckland University Clock Tower.

Caitlin Smith

Caitlin Smith

If you're in Auckland you should really consider popping into Hotel DeBrett on High Street.  Each Sunday from 6.30pm through to 9.30pm you'll get the chance to hear the lovely Caitlin Smith the very pleasant atmosphere of Hotel De Brett.  I went down earlier today to take a few photographs, but must admit to finding the lighting more conducive to relaxing with a glass of wine and listening to fine music than photography.

Caitlin Smith

I'd taken my 85mm lens and was using this wide open at f1.4 with ISO at 3200 and shutter speeds down at 1/50 second.  The resultant images have noise, but not too bad.  Also, I thought the shots may look better if I converted them to monochrome.  However, I;m not really sure if I prefer them in colour or monochrome yet.  They both have advantages.  I think the greatest requirement is to have at least something in the shot sharply focussed.  Not something that was easy to do in the low light!

Anyway, perhaps let me know what you think of the shots in this post ... I'd love to know what you think.

Wow ... what a day!!

After a day like today I can't help but feel somewhat delighted to be alive.  And it gets better ... but I'll tell you that at the end.

Some of the audience enjoying Music in the Parks at Auckland's Domain.

I spent the morning with my son and daughter ... always good fun, and then headed into Auckland City.  Auckland really is a beautiful city and it has some gorgeous parks.  I was heading for the Museum and the Domain where Cat Tunks and Black Sand Diva were playing as part of Auckland City's, "Music in The Parks".  They were performing in the old band rotunda which didn't really make life easy for me.  Perhaps they were quite concerned about people falling off the rotunda, so they erected a "fence" to keep the band inside, and obscure the view for people on the outside.  Oh well.  I tried to get shots through the "fence" and some aren't too bad.  The music however was superb and the folks fortunate to be there had a great time.

I got to meet Caitlin Smith in the audience, and then popped along to DeBretts in the city to see her sing with her jazz trio.  Sweet.  I didn't take too many shots as my camera makes a real clatter when the shutter fires.  The older Nikons don't have the "Q" setting for Quiet, so I decided to leave a little early and let the other folks enjoy Caitlin's talented without the clatter of a camera in the background.

Here's the band, Black Sand Diva.  The gent taking photos through the fence has been doing this for the past  20years!

Below are a couple of shots of the Black Sand Diva band members ...

Cat Tunks

Arli Lieberman.

Jason Orme on the drums.  Great musician.

Bass guitarist, Alex Griffith.  Very skillful gent.

Kiri Kainamu Wheeler (keyboards)  

OK, so there I am taking shots of the band when my 'phone rings.  Good job it was on vibrate otherwise I'd have missed the call.  Wife and daughter are at Mission Bay wondering if I fancied popping down.  Did I ever!  Just look at the shot below, taken at Mission Bay from where I was eating my fish and chips from the Fish Pot Cafe.  Mmmmm.

Rangitoto Island from Mission Bay.

After my Fish 'n Chips I headed into the city to see Caitlin Smith play with her jazz trio.  Lovely.  I believe she has a regular Sunday evening spot at DeBrett's on High Street in the City.  So, if you're in the neighbourhood you should check it out.  Here's a few shots of Caitlin ...

Caitlin Smith

Caitlin Smith

Caitlin Smith

So there you go.  I was having a ball!  So much fun, meeting such lovely people, visiting some great parts of Auckland and also getting a great feed at the Fish Pot Cafe.  But there's more.  It's Sunday night and there's no work tomorrow!  Really ... life is rather good just now.

Victoria Park Tunnel

South entrance to the new Victoria Park tunnel, Auckland, New Zealand

It's open ... well, just to foot traffic today.  Motorists will have to wait a few more weeks before they're allowed to drive through the new tunnel.  Finished ahead of schedule by a good couple of months this new cut and cover tunnel should make life rather easier for those folk on the North Shore as they battle their way home after work.  I can't say I'm convinced it will have either a significant or long lasting benefit, but let's wait and see.

9.30am and the gates opened.  Close by Victoria Park are a couple of 'evacuation' points which hopefully will only be used for the maintenance crews to access the tunnel.  It was through these evacuation points that we gained access to the road beneath.  Several flights of stairs and then, there it was.  All three lanes of the north bound State Highway One. The lanes seemed a little narrow, but perhaps that was just my imagination?

On leaving the tunnel we were impressed by the new skate park. I took a couple of shots of the Maori carvings you can see in the park that I've included at the end of this post.

Welcome to the tunnel!  Clever use of lighting ensures your eyes have time to adjust to the darkness as you enter and the bright sunlight as you exit.  This shot was taken at the Northern end of the tunnel as the road approaches Westhaven Marina.

Access way underneath Victoria Park.  The road is off to the right behind the wall.   Fireproof access ways are provided every 25m in case anything untoward happens on the road.

Contrast between old and new?  Traditional Maori carving and the more modern Skytower in the background.

Old style formatting with a light vignette to accentuate the traditional nature of this carving.

Downtown ...

Huge Rugby Ball on Auckland's wharf.

Feeling rather better today, so I tried a trip downtown Auckland to have a look at "The Cloud" and other special things laid on for the Rugby World Cup.  Sadly, can't say I feel the best since I've come home, but it was quite a pleasant day all the same.  As such, this post will be brief.  There's a few more shots on flickr and G+ if you want to see more :-)

The Topp Twins singing a song for the folks on the wharf.

Quite a few things to see, even the Topp Twins were there!  In fact there were musicians and performers all over the place.  Quite a special atmosphere and it'll be a shame to see it all put away and forgotten about once the World Cup is over.

Talented musician busking in downtown Auckland.

2011 Rugby World Cup Opening Ceremony

In case you hadn't heard, the 2011 Rugby World Cup is being held here in New Zealand.  New Zealand has been preparing for this event for the last few years and with great excitement and anticipation the event opened on Friday.  It has been great to see people preparing for the games with flags of the various nations on buildings, cars and even people's faces.  Part of the opening ceremony was an impressive firework display from barges in the harbour and a number of buildings in the city.  I headed up Mount Hobson to get a few shots along with a few hundred other people!  The atmosphere was great.  People just keen to have a good time.  Very friendly and great fun.  I just hope this continues throughout the event.

With the fireworks over we enjoyed searchlights streaking light through the smoke from the hundreds and thousands of fireworks that made up the display.  Quite amazing how much money is spent on the fireworks and how quickly the show is over.  Anyway, VERY impressive and I think everyone enjoyed the show.

The match on the opening night?  New Zealand vs Tonga.  The winners?  New Zealand's All Blacks of course ;-)

Off to the beach!

As the weather was so lovely we decided to take a trip out to Bethells Beach today.  Gorgeous blue skies, heaps of sun and not too busy.

The tide was going out, so this gave us a chance to see the crabs and other creatures in the rocks and crevices.

The crabs are a wonderful colour and ever so busy.  We just walked along the rocks close to the receding waves and managed to get a few shots of these wonderfult creatures.  Besides crabs we also saw starfish.  Pretty big and with eleven "fingers".  I always thought they have seven or so, not eleven! Anyway, take a squiz and let me know what you think.  If you know what type of crab or starfish I've photographed perhaps leave me a comment with what they are.

I'll finish the post with a few more shots from Bethells Beach.