This shot was taken at Dune 45 in the Namib desert, where the heat can play tricks with your mind.
Continue reading 'IOTW: Reclining nude'
Archive for the 'Photography' category
If you're in any way familiar with Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings films, you'll have heard of Weta Workshop, the Wellington-based and Academy Award-winning effects facility. Weta were commissioned by Wellington City Council to create a sculptural tribute to the New Zealand screen production industry. The resulting film camera look-alike mounted on an imposing "recycled" tripod is installed in Courtenay Place, not far from The Embassy theatre which premiered the LoTR films.
Continue reading 'IOTW: Tripod'
While we anticipate warmer weather here in New Zealand, England is preparing for winter's bite. This picture was taken in late November last year during an early morning walk through the Chatsworth Estate in the Peak District of Derbyshire. The Peak District is a great place to bear witness to the change of seasons. But this year the run-up to Christmas will be decidedly different. Will our eyes miss driving to and from work with headlamps on? Will our ears miss waking to the sound of ice being scraped from windshields? Will our toes miss the feel of having no feeling? Somehow I don't think so.
Continue reading 'IOTW: Frosty morning'
The AF-S Zoom-Nikkor ED 18-200mm f/3.5-5.6G IF DX VR is a great lens (if you can find one). This isn't a review (for that, see here or here), but I'd like to share one aspect of user experience with you.
Continue reading 'A horse of a lens'
The tui is a New Zealand native bird with a distinctive white throat tuft and song (it's also a local beer). It can be readily seen and heard in Wellington's Karori Wildlife Sanctuary, where the population has increased owing to the exclusion of predators. It can be difficult to get a decent photograph of these birds as they feed on fruit, nectar, and insects up in the trees. They ordinarily seem skittish, dashing away at altitude with a whirring noise resulting from a notch in the wing feathers. I shot around 75 images of tui before I had the sheer luck to be near a low stand of flax as a pair landed to feed. Look at the load of pollen he has on his beak!
Continue reading 'IOTW: Tui'
A fiery splash of red. Childhood memories of days at the beach. Humbled in the shadow of the giant and ancient tree at Te Araroa... I do like our native evergreen pohutukawa tree. Perhaps it's because I grew up on the Pohutukawa Coast? For my recent birthday, my parents gave us a pohutu shrub (Metrosideros excelsa). Some of the pohutu trees in Wellington are already in flower—as befits New Zealand's "Christmas tree" given the approach of summer. They don't naturally grow this far south, preferring to live above a line connecting New Plymouth and Gisborne. Project Crimson is a nationwide conservation effort "to enable pohutukawa and rata to flourish again in their natural habitat as icons in the hearts and minds of all New Zealanders." Locally there is a Crimson Trial, and Wellington City Council recently launched a Greening the Quays project, featuring the Maori Princess species of pohutukawa.
Continue reading 'IOTW: Pohutukawa'
