Back to Basics

I have been playing with Square format again. Years ago I had cameras that took square pictures and it really does change how you compose images....

Quite near to Stonehenge Aotearoa, is a multistory house called "The Ghost House" moved to the site in the 1980's but never lived in.. now vandalized and in ruins, perfect for a haunting.

Stonehenge Aotearoa

I visited Stonehenge Aotearoa at Carterton in the Wairarapa,NZ. While this Henge is not made of ancient field stones, it is an accurate working tool, with the Sun Gate, markers, horizon stones etc. I spent about an hour wandering around the site, watching the presentation about how the Henge is used, how the solstice markers work -and was fascinated that so many cultures had such accurate knowledge of the travels of the sun, moon and constellations such as Pleiades .

As Always- clicking on any image will enlarge it full screen for the viewer

Rodeo New Mexico

I have well over 20,000 images and negatives and keep trolling back through images to share, so these are all out of  chronological order.  

It is likely that I will start using Flickr as my host for most images as it is a community of photographers, with groups that I have connection with. You are welcome to join me there, as the collection will continue to grow
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10402623@N04/7634601432/in/photostream 

Halcombe Fields

Saturday morning, minding my own business driving to Marton and this field demanded a u-turn, wet shoes and struggle to get to - all worth it

Te Apiti Windfarm

You don"t realise just how big these turbines are until you stand beside one and feel the air vibrate around you or hear the soft moan. I shot beneath with Infrared - the slow shutter speed blurring the turbine blades

Opportunities

Well, Ive been made redundant, but rather than being a sulky bear Ive decided to stay positive and look at the opportunities to go take some images before finding work. Can I afford not to work?  Not really... but its good to take a pause for breath and work out what has meaning and value. 

I have taken images for  35 years, and photography is about finding the intimate details in the commonplace , of examining, opening, recording but most of all ?  Photography is about  collecting a moment of stillness in a moving stream.

Machinations

Machinations, a photo by raykayjay61 on Flickr.

From the Tokomaru Steam museum

Cuba Street Wellington

Water Buckets

Cuba Street Wellington is one of my favourite places to visit. By night its way more interesting, sleazy and colourful. By day the energy is more relaxed and colourful in different ways

Basking in the Sun

This bronze statue  seems to bask in the sunshine on the waterfront near Te Papa... I imagine in the rain he looks just as pleasured

Feilding Plane Crash

One minute he's doing barrel rolls and living the dream. Then in a horrible moment is the certainty  there's nothing to be done. I arrived at the plane crash just minutes later.. he crashed about 500 metres from my house... yet there's a sense of shock, of loss, and inappropriate voyuerism.  He and his family are in our prayers today. Ray and Kim

BeePee at rest

Very recently someone said to me "I'm just an amateur" - but the word Amateur is highly under rated, because it means "for the love".

 I can't think of a better reason to do anything at all, than for the love or sheer pleasure of it

Digital cameras and software like Photoshop, Lightroom, Paintshop, level the playing field to some degree with professionals. It certainly helps to know the rules in order to break them, but never let inexperience stop you from leaping out of a plane - amateur or pro - you are still going to learn alot on the journey!

So no matter how good you are or how crap, give it a try- if something you see moves you, then do your best to capture the moment and represent it.  Ray

Fan Club

Its been so hot the fan has been out to move air around at night. This image is actually the shadow of a fan, which has distorted the image giving a slightly eeirie feel. Highly overprocessed to torture the pixels.... just the way I like it

December Moon

This shot was totally handheld, but has been manipulated to give it a grainy sinister look. I love grain... its good for you :-).   The tall tree adds to the effect

Makino Road

I use HDR photography carefully being an old school guy trained in the dark arts of Darkroom, and the belief that you get the exposure right at time of  taking.. and the rest follows from that.  Digital breaks all of the rules around tonal ranges, but Im still careful not to shoot with an expectation of fixing mistakes later.  This shot was taken on Makino Road near Feilding, and would have been too difficult to achieve in the darkroom. Process steps include shooting RAW, multiple expoures 2 stops apart, sandwiched in Photomatix with tonal adjustements and HDR applied. From there transferred to PSP3 and layered several times to achieve exposure and tonal banding.

The fishermans glove

Photography is the art of translation, taking what you see and interpreting it for others, either completely and faithfully - or with your own interpretation.
An old discarded fishermans glove buried in the sand can still live on in a new form....

Old Mesilla

Usually Im not a big fan of HDR images, but the age and grittyness of Mesilla required some thinking about. Lovely old town

Poppy and her Boys

To you? Shes just a sheep, but I remember when she turned up as an orphan lamb needing 2 hourly feeds from a bottle and living in a cardboard box by the fire. The two littel rams behind her are  this years lambs. Poppy eats plumbs, mandarins scones and bread. No wonder shes a podgy girl.

London's Ford

London's Ford crosses a stream near Kimbolton, and is a happy place in Summer with people camping near the water, swimming and fishing

I love Wellington... As the sun was setting in a cloudy sky, this image of silver on dark grey just popped ina quik flash if sunlight. Two minutes later it was all over.. photography is about 'the instant'

The Cuba Street Carnival- Wellington

I like that this image is grainy and washed out, it had just rained, the colours were amazing, and if you know Cuba Street, then you can imagine the smell of the street- something like Bananas' mixed with pee and coffee.

On the Desert Road in July, winter, temperature at -2 with the sun going down, Mt Ruapehu looked pretty in pink.. I wasnt outside long, but got an amazing set of images beofre, in an instant, the magic was gone

Its been awhile, work so busy, but I have been taking photographs! The danger of digital - so many images, and so little time to publish. These two are colour, justto show Im not so biased about black and white. At Omokoroa on a cloudy heavy morning, the dampness darkens the greens and makes the other colours pop nicely. The top one is slightly manipulated to take out an ugly tarpaulin..otherwise they are much as I saw them

The Water Series

These three pictures were taken as part of a larger series using warm and cream tones. L very patiently wore a heavy evening dress in the ocean, peeling the outer layer and using the under-petticoats for the final shots. There were around 80 images in total...


I would like to recreate these shots using some different techniques with a different model. Overall some of the photos (not shown) were rather stunning, and this set has remained a favourite since they were taken in 1998.

New Mexico - Mesilla and San Xavier del Bac

Antique Store, Old Town Mesilla, NM.

San Xavier del Bac Mission. The light here was amazing in the early morning.

I imagine about 4pm would be an exceptional time also with the angle of light passing in the sky

Turkey Run State Park, Indiana

These two images, originally in colour, have been given a slight warm tone, similar to Agfa Fibre-based papers that I have used. Warm toned papers are more sympathetic to the eye than pure black and white for some subjects.

Walking near this lake, we had stood a moment in the silence watching the wind patterns on the water shifting, when a young buck deer quietly trotted into view about 10 metres away, looked right at us, stopping briefly, and then continued on into the trees. Disappeared in moments like he had never been there at all. Somehow, it made the silence around us more complete

My Favourite place in America ?

In California I saw lots of pretty girls and fancy cars, fine houses. I've already commented below that we found exceptional hospitality in Arizona New Mexico and especially Texas. We saw some great stuff in Indiana, met a bubbly Navajo Indian, met firemen, Policemen and Border Patrolmen, total fruitloops and genuine folks. We saw folks smoking in gas stations and had the biggest damn breakfast on the planet, but my favourite place was this stretch of road between Douglas and Lordsburg, where Arizona becomes New Mexico at a little town called Rodeo.

This was Geronimo's hide out, and the place he surrendered, which is now Coronado National Forest, and not far away from where Cochise hung about. Tombstone and Bisbee are testament to the harshness of the frontier as it was not that long ago, and not very far from here either.

I step out of the car and onto the road, hear total silence. No trees, no birds, no wind, no cars, nothing moving except the big sky ..... and I realise that what I see hasn't changed much for hundreds of years. Looking up I noticed the sky. It goes from blue to grey really fast. The road stretches towards Granite Gap ghost town in front of me somewhere, behind me was Rodeo.

I'm all alone, yet there is a sense that this is not a lonely land. Somewhere beyond the foothills, perhaps in that canyon or along the prairie ,life is steadily and quietly going about its business without me. Here are just five images that tell the story

If I could go anywhere by closing my eyes, it would be here - in the middle of nowhere I feel I have found the faded glory, the heartland I sought when I started this journey with Kim. Nowhere tells me more strongly that the heartland beats and is alive, long after I am gone the rhythm will continue.