The Quarry

I've been here before. I've even taken photos here before. I know you were surprised by that statement but it's true.

I was there the other week, shooting some stuff so that my film developing trip would actually be worth making.

It was exceptionally windy. Okay, it was windy, certainly not exceptionally windy for Wellington south coast, but it was windy enough to make shooting difficult and even with my heavy tripod the 4x5 nearly blew over a couple of times.

Still I managed to get a couple of shots. Not bad shots too even if I do say so myself. Of course they have absolutely no purpose. That's why they're appearing here. On this blog. To give them some reason to exist.

It's the shed at the entrance to Owhiro Bay Quarry just in case you were wondering.

If you're a remarkably observant person you may have felt that the top image was vaguely familiar. That would be because it also appears in this post.

And here's why. Primarily it's because I'm too lazy to separate exposed film holders from unexposed film holders until it's time to develop the stuff. But also, on this particular day, the wind being what it was I was too scared to leave the camera alone for more than a second, having previously experienced the $600 joy of having the camera blow over in the Manawatu wind. Consequently when it came time to shoot, I grabbed the first film holder I saw. Needless to say I didn't actually check to see if I should use it. Naturally it would have been better if I didn't use the first one I grabbed. Naturally I didn't spot the mistake until I'd taken the shot and moved the camera to relative safety. Due to the mistake I was required to move the camera back to relative harm and take the shot which appears above so as to have a non-double exposed version also. Awesome. Thanks Wellington.

The Stinky

This post should really be called "The Strange And The Stinky", but I'm not brave enough to mess with convention that much. Let alone be unconventional.

First the stinky. You just have to love kids birthday parties. Or maybe you don't. Me I can't decide either way really - part of me does, part of me doesn't.

But the last one I went to - i.e. on Sunday - I at long last received the recognition I've been waiting for all my life.

Shame it was King of Smelly Feet. But at least I am now officially a King.

And the strange?

Yesterday I was walking along The Terrace, and in the space of about two minutes had two really weird Flight Of The Conchords experiences. On the other side of the road, just past where I once flatted, this guy wandered by in one of Bret's tops (the red stripy one from the opening credits) and with Bret's beard. It wasn't Bret though, this guy was stockier and wearing cargo shorts, which I couldn't really see Bret wearing, not with that top anyway.

Nothing strange in that I hear you say. And you'd be right. Just a bit of sartorial namechecking going on. Nothing to get too excited about.

But then the really strange thing happened. Not too far down the road, this guy on a bicycle rode by. Again nothing to strange. But this guy was wearing a cycle helmet. A cycle helmet which looked like hair!! He didn't look like either Bret or Jermaine though. It was still a strange sight.

It's kinda cool that folk around here are taking a postmodern approach to fandom - if that's what it is and not just strange coincidence - and highlighting their admiration via little props, not loud screamy t-shirts and the like.

And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, you need to watch more TV - or live in a country that plays decent American made New Zealand comedy.

The Seuss

Ever since discovering how the Spanish pronounce 'Jesus', whenever I see the word I start singing (to myself generally):

Hey Seuss where you been
Hey Seuss where you been
Hey Seuss where you been
Hey Seuss mumble mumble mumeeennn

(The "mumble mumble mumeeennn" bit I normally sing as "where the f*c# you been", but I don't think that's right.)

Sad I know.

Sadder for you if you don't know the reference though.

Anyway all that is a nice lead in to my latest Jesus pictures. My latest because, as you're no doubt aware, I am renowned for the use of religious iconography in my photography.


A little bigger than the first shot, but not as big as the second.

And a little bit of detail from the bottom.

Clever bugger who did it. Real clever.

And here's a shot of the artist, i.e. me, at work, taken by someone not me. Nice.

The Head

This is The Head Pt.IV, following The Head Pt.I, The Head Pt.II and The Head Pt.III quite logically enough. It may well be the penultimate The Head - at least the penultimate The Head of this series.

I took these after the win, hence this nice little sign.

This one of the toilets at Princess Bay also had a 'Sorry Kerry' sign, but it's lost in the detail.

Admittedly it doesn't help that I double exposed this neg with an upcoming post. I blame the wind myself. But you'll have to wait for that installment won't you now.

The Spy

Being an idiot I got hooked on TradeMe.

Being a clever idiot, and lacking much in the way of an addictive personality, I got over it quite quickly.

Not before spending money on things I didn't really need though.

This however was not one of them.

This I most definitely needed.

It's my spy camera.

And this is some unsuspecting lass in the pub I went to the night I got the camera.

Here's what I shot it on. That pic (above) was with the camera and standard lens, whereas this pic (below) shows the camera, standard (24mm) lens mounted on the camera, the 18mm wide angle, the 50mm telephoto, and the motordrive. Crazy.

And here's the standard lens off the camera for a size comparison.

The unloaded camera with standard lens weighs in at a girlie 173grams. Nice. I took it cycling the other day, and didn't even notice the added weight. As a friend said, it's like the camera you'd get with a Photographer Barbie if there was such a thing - something neither of us would be aware of I hasten to add.

Are you jealous yet David?!

The Circular

Apparently no one is doing circular photos anymore (mumble mumble bitterness mumble bastard mumble talentless prick mumble mumble mumble).

So I decided to take this.
Andrew Ross has taken one similar. Only his was later in the day and round the road a bit (from memory).

For those of you who like to know the technical crap, this was taken using an ND8 and a red filter (I hardly ever use the red anymore but used it for this mainly to increase the exposure time knowing that it would also increase contrast, but that's not a bad thing in this case). f32, 10 sec, FP4+ rated 100, developed in Rodinal for 9 minutes at 20deg celcius.

The Depressed

I have a certain reputation amongst friends of being depressive. Not depressed. Just depressive. Continually walking in a cloud of pessimism. Always looking on the bleak side of life. No hint of any sense of humour. Etc etc.

That's why this appeals. Thanks Charles.

Admittedly it's not exactly unwarranted, but today I had to chuckle (just slightly and quietly least people think I did have a sense of humour, even though I was in the middle of nowhere with no one else as far as the eye could see - which wasn't really that far but you get the idea). If only yous could have seen me.

Racing downhill. Silly grin on my face. I was once again reminded that solid exercise and nature are the biggest buzzes I can get. And it makes me happy. Hear that?! Happy!!

And even the odd injury isn't enough to stop it being awesome.

So here we have the first cycling related blood of the summer. Awesome.

I did some superficial damage to the bike on this fall too, which isn't usually the case with me. I'll try and do a better job next time. I'm still waiting for my rescue helicopter trip sometime. Slowly working up to that one.

The Sleeping

A friend sent me a link to a couple of photos she'd recently taken. One of them was a cool shot of a guy standing next to a brick wall. Nothing amazing about that. But what made the shot was the fact that he had his eyes closed and a really serene expression.

I was reminded of this shot I took a last month on one of my crappy 110 cameras.

I don't suppose I really have to mention the influence for this shot, especially as it's kinda embarrassing but it's here.

This is the immediately preceding shot. Nice bit of cheek sucking to add emphasis to the cheek bones. Freakin poser.

The Grasses

The Garden

Mum says "What are you doing?"

"Taking a photo."

"Of what? Of the tree? Have you got a new camera?"

"Um yep."

A few minutes pass.

"Ooh what did you take that for? It's boring."

"Cos." When I actually meant "I only had one shot left and I wanted to. And cos I thought this might make a nice kinda boring shot."

I believe I was correct.

The Buildings

I am fairly convinced that this is one of the nicest municipal in the country.

It's taken me quite a while to reach that conclusion.

Largely due to the fact that growing up in the Hutt, one would never imagine that there is anything of real worth in the Hutt.

Fortunately, no longer living in the Hutt has given me a certain perspective on the place.

So here's a (crooked) photo of part of the Hutt City Council Building with nice spring garden.

I was on my way to the Dowse to see the "Zeitgeist Becomes Form" show. Only I didn't realise it cost $10 to get in. So I didn't. And I have to say, it seems to me that the much heralded extension of the gallery has made the place smaller, and more confusing to navigate around. Awesome.

Still that didn't stop me taking a bad photo of it.

The Motorway

A week ago I decided to ride out to the Hutt. And I had the crazy idea of taking a camera with me.

I've done this trip hundreds, in fact thousands, of times over the years - mostly by car, lots by train, quite a few by bike, and at least once on foot. As long as I can remember I've always been fascinated by a little view on the left. But what with it being next to a motorway it's kinda hard to stop the car and get photos.

I'd done it once before, years ago, and got a really shit result. So I thought I'd try it again.

I got this.

This is in the same area, looking towards the quarry.
I also discovered a nice polaroid technique. It involves removing the (broken) light leak barrier from the front of the camera. The result being that umm ... light leaks into the camera. And thereby onto the film. The result being this nice colour shift and light exposure. Cool.

The Winner

Last week I got an email from this guy in Auckland. It said:

"Welcome along to the AHR October news broadcast... beaming out from the bottom of a volcano

... More about The Hills Have Ears – Arch Hill Compilation IV

We mentioned it last news time but by now you might be wondering how to get hold of The Hills Have Ears – Arch Hill Compilation IV, featuring 15 tracks across the board of Arch Hill bands... well there are a few different ways... firstly if you could head along to one of the following shows where [blah blah blah] ...

Or if you aren’t in Auckland and can’t make it, then can also buy the compilation for the Arch Hill website for $10 by heading to http://www.archhill.co.nz OR the first five people to reply to this email with their address can WIN a copy... or people who aren’t on the mail list (OK I guess you are if you are getting this) can get a copy by signing up at http://www.archhill.co.nz"

All very exciting. So I reply thusly:

"Am I in the first five????????"

To which the reply came:

"You are lucky last – but you will have to send an address.

Thanks
Ben"

So I did. And I thanked him.

Today it arrived in my post box. Exciting. Here's the cover.

It's very good. But being an Arch Hill release you'd expect it to be. For more information go here.

And for those of you interested I've recently added a bit of stuff to my website. Some of it you'll have to search for - if you really want to know exactly what I've added and have nothing better to do.

The Bad

Wanna see some bad scanning?!

And some bad photoshop work?!

Largely due to the bad scanning, but also in part because of the photography.

This place is in the Kaimanawas and this photo really doesn't do the place justice. Regardless of the technical issues. Needless to say, I didn't fancy dropping the Hasselblad off the bridge while trying to get these shots.

The Job

Just been doing a clean out and came across these. From May 2004.

Some days my job really sucks.




See it sucks. So much that it hospitalises you. Not nice.

They were all shot by Paul Fisher. From memory they're all at Hutt Hospital and were for ACC. From memory.

The Neck

When I did my back in they x-rayed my whole spine.

That's my neck.

Even though the problem was in my lower back. Go figure.

The Hip

A few years ago, April 1995 to be precise, I damaged my back while doing some gardening pickaxe style at my parents house. So damaged did I damage my back that I went to a doctor. He sent me to have it x-rayed. Here's my hip.

Naturally because there was no visible damage on the x-ray it turned out to be psychosomatic. But then I've always been a hypochondriac so I guess they were right. Whatever. I got over it.

The Deluxe

Some of you guys are probably aware that I enjoy the odd coffee from Deluxe. Sometimes when I'm there I have a camera with me also. Consequently I sometimes take photos of and at Deluxe. This posting contains two such photos.

The Snow

Does it ever frustrate you, dear reader, that my blog is far from linear in it's narrative of my life?

Well, once again we go back in time. To the mid 2007's. To the mid North Island.

The following were taken on the way back from Hamilton. It was cold and grey and wet. Until we got to the Desert Road. Then it was bloody cold and grey and snowing.

It was quite beautiful actually. Though we did find a flaw in the car we were driving - the sensor at the front which activates the brakes if it feels you're getting too closer to an object in front stops working when it's covered in snow slush; that's handy.

The Finger

This is what happen when you forget that you're not using an slr. Though it only happens sometimes. Hence the reason we buy an slr.

The Winner

There's a wild rumour going around that last weekend I, at long last, became a winner.

Yes, that's right, a winner. Me.

I wasn't present, however, so I only have other people's word to go on. But those words suggest that I won "Most Valuable Player" for our team (no surprise there; they always lost without me - and only lost sometimes with me).

And I won the "Best Goalkeeper" ... in the entire club. That one was a bit of a surprise. If only cos I didn't know such a trophy existed.

So here's a photo of me with my trophies. Even though I wasn't present to collect them.

Okay so I cheated a bit with a photo stolen from here (thanks Graham and Pierre), and a head stolen from a shot Sharyn took of me months ago (thanks Sharyn).

But I can, however, regale you with stories of earlier prizegivings at the very same clubrooms.

Years ago, when I was at high school (see years ago), Naenae Hockey Club put on a weekend tournament where all the first teams from the local (greater Wellington) high schools played together. Coming from a low decile school (not that such a thing existed back then) our first team played in a low grade. Consequently when it came to this tournament we tended to get thrashed. 17-0 was not an uncommon score.

I still remember being told off for yelling the "c" word (rhymes with 'runt' for those of you wondering exactly which word I mean) loudly one game. I only did it because we were being beaten 13-0 and one of the opposition players decided to whack me on the head with his stick. This was the day before helmets, but it was still an effort for a player to lift his stick up to head height to hit you. They scored as I was doing this. I didn't see who the guy was. I got told off.

Years later I found out who that player was. I'd played rep and club hockey with him and never knew until he went out of town to go to varsity. Bloody Wella (as in wella woman - he was very proud of his hair).

Anyway even this unsporting little moment didn't stop me twice winning "Most Sportsmanlike Conduct" or somesuch thing. Really they meant "Biggest Loser" but they were too kind to say.

Proud moments. Proud moments. Damned proud moments.

The Long

I was saving these images up for a time I felt like writing a big long spiel again.

Today I don't. But here are the shots anyway.

I think it's fairly obvious where they're taken. What may not be so obvious is that they also used my "world-beating device that allows you to shoot 35mm film on any medium format camera."

The Close-up

On the weekend I bought myself another camera - a Polaroid 636 Close-up. It was $5.00 - plus petrol, so probably about $6.70 all told. Mint condition with original packaging (not that I'm a trainspotter or anything). It's a poor cousin to my SX-70 - which Sharyn still has - but the film it uses is still available and you don't need to make any modifications (unlike the SX-70). And it was only $5.

I'm lucky to have some nice trees in my backyard, despite the fact that I've been threatening to pull them out since I moved in. But they mean I can try a new camera/piece of equipment without resorting to the standard self-portrait.

Here are a couple of shots of said trees from my new camera.

And one of (some of) my camera collection. Minus the new camera cos I was using that to take the photo. There are another 8 or so cameras missing, some cos I use them fairly regularly, some cos I'm too lazy to tidy up after myself all the time.

And to change subject somewhat, Jo, one of my Wanganui friends, was kind enough to blog me, so I'm returning the favour - permanent link on the left.