11 months absence from photography
Yep thats right. Ok, i did do a wedding shoot in February (don’t even think about asking me about that!) but I haven’t done any of ‘my kind’ of photography for 11 months. So its perfectly fitting that I return to Port Waikato to take some pics - the last place I took ‘my kind of shots’.
Honestly, I didn’t miss not shooting much. I am quite a busy lad with my business and photography is just something I’ve always done for fun.
My sister and her husband paid a visit to New Zealand so I took them along to one of my favourite spots. And of course the place didn’t disapoint. Here are a few of my efforts:
When I first came across the seal in the last photograph, I thought it was dead. Its ears had been worn away, there were flies all over it and no sign of breathing. We came across it later upon our return - it was not dead but breathing very heavily.
A passerby in their infinite wisdom wanted to confort the seal by petting it. It jerked back its head quickly. Luckily no one was bitten, but the seal look quite agitated as it wheezed for air. It came in for a rest from the sea, or more likely by the condition it was in, to die on the shores.
Tena koe ehoa
It’s good to see you back up and blogging! Although I have not made an appearence before to you on your blog, I have viewed your images on a few occasions from your last shut-down blog. I too have an enviable affinity for Port Waikato and have posting a few images from the area at my place over the last year. I was at Port Waikato recently and saw something dead on the beach I couldn’t recognize at all. This is on sunset beach/ocean side so this is not what it was.
Any hooodle, it’s great to see you back as I was impressed with your images previously I hope to see more of your photographic expression in the coming future.
Comment by ndiginiz — October 23, 2006 @ 9:22 am
Hi. Very impressed with your photos. May I ask whether they have been manipulated. Sorry to appear to be rude but have become dissapointed with the amount of manipulation involved with photos I have have seen in the last year. My girlfriend and I are planning to move over to NZ in the next couple of years and would be interested to know what job propects are like for established /and up and coming photographers. would be interested to hear response from both questions!
Comment by hugh — January 7, 2007 @ 7:14 pm
Hi Hugh,
Thanks for your comments. Congratulations on your decision to come to NZ. Not sure what the job prospects are for pro photographers here, I am just an amateur and hobbyist (this isn’t my day job!)
I am afraid you are going to be sorely disappointed as these photographs have been manipulated, albeit with traditional methods (dodging,burning) emulated in Photoshop.
Personally, I have no problem with this, as I do not adhere to a photojournalistic/documentary style. I see photography as an extension my creativity. If you are film photographer, does use of super saturated film such as velvia count as manipulation, as these colours do not exist in Nature? Great landscapes photographers (eg Ansel Adams) were experts at manipulating negatives. Even the famous Hubble telescope images are manipulated by artists before they are sent to the public. Also what about images that have been staged? What about studio lighting, filters, specialty lens (fish-eyed lens), posing, shifting of objects in a natural environment etc - manipulation is ubiquitous!
This day and age the context moves from analogue (film) to digital. Manipulation is more accessible to public through Photoshop. This is not inherently a bad thing. In earlier times Painters complained that photographers were ‘cheapening’ their art form simply because anyone could create ‘art’ by clicking a button. In our current paradigm, film photographers say digital photography ruins their craft. However, in all of these art forms (painting, film & digital photography) tons of work are produced; only the best are remembered. So yes, there is a large quantity manipulation of going on in this era, but people will admire the ‘best’ works - whether they have been manipulated or not.
See the following references:
http://www.dmcphoto.com/Articles/ImageManipulation/ImageManipulation2.html
http://www.digitaldarrell.com/Article-IsDigitalImageManipulationALie.asp
http://photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=0001m3
http://www.space.com/imageoftheday/image_of_day_030618.html
http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/photos/photos.html
Comment by vonnagy — January 11, 2007 @ 1:27 pm
[…] I took the opportunity to drive away this weekend. Due to work, I hardly have anytime to take photos, much less take photos. I took my camera along just incase I would see anything interesting - but I was mainly just to got out of Auckland for a few hours. Once again I came across a unique ‘creation’ whilst walking on Sunset beach in Port Waikato. This time someone put on a pair of orange gloves on a piece of driftwood. A few months early the beach was littered with several pairs of orange gloves and now some took the liberty to fit them on a piece of driftwood. […]
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