Puhinui Reserve

Puhinui Reserve

I'd had a meeting at the airport and on the way home decided to pop into Puhinui Reserve.  This has long been the place for horse trials so there's some wide open spaces as well as a few copses and a very nice lake close by the entrance to the park.  It was this lake that I wanted to see again.  You may remember a post from back in 2009 where I shot the same scene onto which I superimposed my mother's favourite poem?   The weather was quite different then and the trees were a lovely autumnal colour.  Being as we've had hardly any rain I was curious to view the scene again.

I must admit to finding the light on the trees somewhat awkward due to deep shadows, and the scene just didn't have the same appeal as it did under autumnal conditions.  I tried a portrait shot (see left) and a couple of landscape shots ... I even tried a conversion to monochrome ... as well as a few different crops.  Was I happy with the results?  Well, not really :-(  Perhaps let me know what you think and how today's shot compares with the one from 2009.  I'd be especially intrigued to hear what you think of the black and white image.

Landscape view of the lake in glorious colour ;-)

Landscape view of the lake in monochrome ;-)

I suppose the final version.  2:1 crop and tweaked in Color Efex.

Bella Kalolo at Jellicoe Park.

Bella Kalolo on stage at the Music in Parks event in Onehunga yesterday.

Great to see Bella on stage again yesterday and judging by the audience's response I wasn't the only person who enjoyed her music.

I must admit to finding the Music in Parks events challenging in a different way to the low light shots I usually take of the bands.  Now the issue is more of "interest" in the shot than available light.  What with tents, parked cars and plain white tents for a backdrop there's not a not of interest really!  Also, all those things that often blend into the background are now quite well illuminated by the sunlight.  Under a tent the light is diffused and very even, so contrast levels are significantly different to the artificially lit shots in bars and events centres.  I try to keep the lens wide open to blur the confusing backgrounds, but this can cause focus problems.  The shots in this post were taken at f2.8 with a 200mm lens and you can see in the first image that Bella's left eye is nowhere near as sharp as hr right.  Quite different to shooting in the studio!  Here the "model" is in constant motion and correct focus with shallow depth of field is challenging.


The aim for me yesterday was to get a few shots of Bella.  I'm still going through the images and trying to decide if there's any worth keeping.  She's a very attractive lady and puts a lot of emotion into her songs.  I need to be careful that the emotion from the singing and her natural beauty is not lost or confused in my images.  Perhaps let me know what you think of the three shots in this post?  It's always helpful to get comments from people that can help me do a better job next time!

Anyway, I'll keep working through my images, but really wanted to share a few with you and encourage you to visit Bella's website.  Who knows, she may be visiting somewhere near you and it'd be such a shame to miss her.

Bella Kalolo in monochrome again

This time you can see Bella in colour.  Any preference?

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.

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.

Bluebells ... and black and white

Image #1:  Bluebells with natural colour.

There was some lovely light on the bluebells under the liquid amber earlier today that I thought I'd try a few shots and see what I could do with a black and white treatment of these pretty blooms.

I thought I'd use a long lens as my original idea was to get foreground blooms in focus with a smooth blur for the background bluebells.  I tried this, but felt there was too little contrast and the delicate foreground blooms, whilst sharply focussed, just got lost in the background blur.

f5.6 seemed to give me the sharpness of the bloom I was looking for and using the long end of the 70-200mm zoom helped reduce the amount of background focus.  The idea was to create a black and white shot, but does it work?

I'll post three versions of the same image each processed slightly differently.  Perhaps let me know which you prefer?

Image #2:  Bluebells with increased light in the midtones and dark areas

Image #3:  Goes without saying really - bluebells in black and white.

New book :-)

Latest addition to my library and something I'm thoroughly enjoying reading.

Some of you may recall my fondness for monochrome images, or should I say chromatic greyscale images?  I spent many happy hours processing black and white film in the darkroom when I was younger and never ceased to be entranced as the image magically appeared on the photographic paper.  It wasn't this magic alone that inspired me to take black and white photographs, there was something else.  There's something very special about a good black and white photograph.  Creating a good black and white image, however, is not that easy ... hence the book.

It's early days yet with my new acquisition, but so far I'm impressed.  There's a lot to learn as I work through the various exercises that will be useful skills for all types of photography.  So, if you don't hear from me for a while you'll now know why.

Monochrome ... for a change :-)

Lupins

Thankfully I'm starting to feel more normal again after this dreadful chest infection.  Still not 100%, but certainly on the mend now.  In an attempt to feel less nauseous I headed off to the Botanic Gardens for a breath of fresh air.  Oh, and I took my camera ... just in case there was something nice to see.

The first thing to catch my eye were the lupins.  I've always liked their leaves.  Great textures and patterns that I think are perhaps best captured with a monochrome treatment.

After the lupins I headed down towards the lake where there was this gorgeous tree with some quite stunning cones.  I;m afraid I don't know the name of the tree, but if you do, please let me know.  Again, a monochrome treatment with a light vignette ... sounds like a salad!  The shots have a bit of an old style look to them which I must admit to quite liking.  Perhaps let me know what you think?

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.

A bit of black and white ...

I've been looking through some old photographs ... well, not that old really, just a few months old.  The shot you see in this post brought back quite a few memories.  It was taken last year whilst visiting the UK.  I'd been walking around Westhoughton and spent a bit of time in the graveyard and this particular monument caught my eye.  The light was quite pleasant, but I was shooting into the sun.  As such I tried a bracketed set of shots and combined them into an HDR shot with Photomatix Pro.

The memorial is for the 344 men and boys who lost their lives in the Pretoria Pit as a result of an explosion.  This tragedy is Britain's third largest loss of life from a single mining event.  The explosion occurred at 7.50am on a Wednesday morning and took everyone by surprise.  There's a quote at the foot of the inscription on the memorial which says,

"Be ye therefore ready also, for the Son of Man cometh at an hour when ye think not"
 Luke 12. v40

Quite a fitting quotation I thought.

I must admit to being quite stunned by the magnitude of this event.  Westhoughton is much larger now than it was back in 1910 and 344 deaths would have a big impact on today's town ... it's hard to imagine what effect this event had back in 1910.

Interesting what you can find if you look in old graveyards, and how thought provoking some of those finds can be.

Mainline Steam ... in monochrome

Just looking through some of the shots from yesterday I decided to changes some of them to monochrome. Some of them don't look too bad, and I suppose, due to the age of steam locomotives, you kind of expect the images to be in black and white.  A few of the locomotives were built in the later 1930s or 1940s and most people taking photographs of the railways were using black and white rather than colour.  So, here's a few more shots from Mainline Steam.  Let me know what you think.

Gloria facing Auckland City.  Interesting halo effect from ice crystals in the clouds.

Inside the workshops.  3 shot HDR image

Ja1267 inside the workshops at Mainline Steam

I just liked the light falling onto the smokebox door of this locomotive. 

Take Note ... take 2

Take Note ... in monochrome.

Black and white images have interesting properties and can often convey a better impression of an event than a full colour shot can.  Is it because you look more at the shapes?  Perhaps you're imagination fills in the gaps?  Then again, perhaps the photograph can focus your mind on the more salient aspects of the image?  I'm not sure, but a good black and white image is VERY hard to beat!  Sadly,  can't claim to have the ability to craft these stunning monochrome images ... but that doesn't stop me trying.  Sorry :-(

So, this post has a few monochrome images from Take Note's performance last Friday night at Ellerslie's Cock 'n Bull.  Take a look at let me know what you think.  Part of me things the "noise", lack of precise focus or movement in the image is acceptable and almost expected in certain shots.  Hints and suggestions are more than welcome by the way.