The Twizzer

There are times when I turn up to a new town (okay the town generally isn't that new, but it's new to the present me) and I'm just not inspired, but I feel an obligation to try and get a photo or two, just cos it's somewhere I've never been, or at least not been for many years, and don't know when I'm likely to be back there, and I have this need to place my mark on the town, create an image of it that is about me - the photographer, the tourist, the artist, the witness - as much as it is about the town itself.

Twizel was one of those towns.

It was probably the third visit before I kind of 'got' anything. In fact, I 'got' this.

Then a little later, probably a day or two later, I got these.

Again with the continuing motif.

The Personal

It's been a strange week, what with relationships founded, and relationships reinvigorated, and it being Valentines and all. Love in all its guises has been the over-riding theme.

Then there's the ongoing, and somewhat enlivened, battle between the romantic and the cynic, the optimist and the pessimist. And the wonderful rediscovery of music that seems to have been made for weeks like this. (Great Lake Swimmers has to be one of the best ever band names too, and with great lyrics as well, even ones that fit this week's optimistic pessimism - sleeping is the only way sometimes / to live in a perfect world - you can't go wrong.)

One of those reinvigorated relationships has been with my old friend Jodi. We haven't spent a great deal of time together over the past couple of years, but she's been in Wellington this week working on her latest show, and we've been able to hang out and spend valuable time together. And it has been wonderful.


I, well the cynic in me anyway, wanted to move on from the ghastly romanticism of the last few posts, but it seems I'm stuck in this pleasant headspace, surrounded by love. Long may it continue!!

The Tulips

Continuing with the Valentines Day kinda thing (you know, hearts and flowers and that kind of stuff), these tulips were shot in my flat in Hornsey/Crouch End, London in 1998.


Clearly I had no idea what I was doing. This, above, is the only decent shot amongst them!!


But they're nice flowers, and behind my cold, hard, cynical exterior, I am actually a bit of a dumb romantic at heart.

The Valentin

The Couple

This week I had the pleasure making a new friend - well we met a year ago, but didn't really hang out any that time. It was lovely. It was surreal. It was funny. It was sad.

Sad because she doesn't live on these shores.

By odd coincidence, as regular viewers may have noticed, I've been scanning my London stuff. For some reason the same woman (though not the one mentioned above) keeps making appearances in the shots. I'm still trying to work out exactly why. Maybe it had something to do with us going out, I really don't know.

Anyway here are some of the more interesting ones. I hope she doesn't mind.

The Queen

After a week in the Ahuriri, with trips out to Twizel and Omarama, I decided it was time for a roadtrip. I was heading to the Matukituki Valley. But went via Queenstown - cos I needed some new tyres, and thought that'd be the best place to get them.

I did get a new set of tyres. I also got scared - honestly, literally scared (it was rather bizarre really).

Consequently this is the only photo I got of Queenstown. As you can see, it is rather iconic, while continuing one of my motif collections.

The Monopolist

When I was living in London, years ago, I started a project. It was the first proper photographic project I ever started. And it set the pattern for subsequent photographic projects, i.e. a massive and gross failure to progress happily towards anything verging on a satisfactory completion.

Needless to say, this project was rather uninspired, as was the day I started photographing. But here are all the images - in the order taken, which is not the correct order, but I'm too lazy to do that, especially when there are images missing, and some duplicate locations.

Always start as you mean to go on I always say.