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.

A bit of something nice ...

Kowhai, 35mm f1.4G wide open.

Preparing for a session with Cat Tunks at Titirangi's Hardware cafe I've managed to borrow to lovely Nikkor 35mm f1.4.  I'd taken a few shots in the Toolroom at the Hardware cafe a few months ago as part of the Titirangi music festival.  Light was a problem then.  Well, light and the somewhat cramped environment in which the musicians performed.  I'd used my 50mm f1.8 last time, but this time fancied something a little faster, and also something that would be sharp with the lens open.  My 50mm f1.8 is a great lens, but isn't the sharpest at f1.8.  The 85mm f1.4 I was playing with last week was quite lovely even wide open, but would be a little long for the cramped environment of the Toolroom.

So there you go, that's why I've got the 35mm f1.4.  I intend using just this one lens at Cat's performance tonight at the Toolroom, but will it be as sharp as I hope?

Off into the garden again to have a little play and come to terms with the lens.

First shot in this post is of the kowhai blooms at the top of my driveway.  Really quite lovely flowers and the setting sun has given a wonderful golden glow to the flowers.  Nice and sharp, quite shallow depth of field and the bokeh effect isn't too bad.  For me, not as pleasing as with the 85mm f1.4, but that's OK.

Weeds!  35mm f1.4G, wide open

Still keen to see how sharp this lens is wide open, curious about the bokeh and intrigued by how close I could focus we now get the second shot.  These are some weeds in the lawn by the garage door.  I was quite pleased here.  I can see the hairs on the flower stems, but there's some quite nice blur both in the foreground and background.  This shot was focused manually as I was having a few problems with the autofocus whilst so close to the weeds.

Right, now all I need to do is get something to eat, have a wash, get changed and drive over to the Toolroom.  I'll post some more photos of Cat and the band later today or tomorrow ... depends how much fun I'm having!