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.

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

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'

Reflections of Summer

For Sale $20,000 . Yeah? Yeah......

Slumber

A quiet Sunday morning, birds singing, not much to do for these people camped at the Feilding Motor camp. Most trailer parks are slightly depressing places, this one most of all because its surrounded by big old Macrocarpa trees - not alot of Sun on any Sunday

Apiti Windfarms

These Wind Turbines sit on the hills behind Palmerston North and can be seen for miles. By world standards they overgenerate - due no doubt to the strong winds that pass difrectly from either Australia or deep in the Southern Ocean, pass over this thin strip of land on their way to Argentina which is the next landfall. Over 100 of these turbines exist with more on the way. New Zealand has no nuclear energy, relying on Hydro, Coal and Gas for most of our needs. Each of these blades is 45 metres long (about 130 feet) and the nacelle (little house behind the blade) is the size of a single-car garage

An Old Hay Shed, Kiwitea

Tightly cropped because it sits hard against the roadside, I passed this old shed every day on my way to work for almost five years watching it slowly sag and bow to the wind and rain. Ive artificially given the digital image a warm tone since the sky was so washed out and uninteresting. Leica V-lux1 and 85mm lens. Not a good image, but in response to the request for one such as this.

Totara Stump, Pongaroa

This old stump was on my Granny's 60 acre farm. As a boy I loved going there in Summer. She kept just a few cows so the grass was always long and dry, and when the breeze blew it waved like the ocean. I'd be gone for hours, called back for huge lunches and home made cakes in the afternoons, to the tiny farmhouse my Grandfather had built for her during the depression.

Shepherds Cottage, Kiwitea

Thousands of these old Shepherds Cottages, hay sheds and old milking sheds can be found in rural New Zealand and mostly built of timber until you head for the South Island where stone becomes the material of choice the further south you go. Leica with 200mm

Distant Rainbows

The odd colouring in this shot comes from the sheet rainbow surrounding this distant ridge, several kilometres from where I was standing. Taken almost the same time as the image below, it has a totally different feel and look. To give you an idea of perpective, the small white dots on the grass are sheep. The mountains behind climb to over 3500 feet.

Delivering Snow

The Ruahine Ranges are very close to home and until a few months ago we lived 600m up the slopes just to the right of this image. It's winter of course in the Southern Hemisphere giving this picture a very moody and almost monochromatic look. Leica with 400mm telephoto

George Street 1988

Scanning this image from 1988, I realise how badly scanners capture the true depth of tone and detail of original images. This one was part of a series of 6x8" prints taken from 6x7cm negatives that were sold fully matted, and its my regret I cannot show you the original with all the glorious shadow detail. Ansel Adams would have been happy. Warm tone Fibre-based paper

Feilding

This is our home-town Feilding, pop 8,000. Feilding is an old farming town that still relies heavily on the surrounding areas like Apiti to send Beef, sheep and deer to the saleyards for auction every week. On those days when the smell hangs cloyingly over town, it is said to be 'the smell of money'. The hills in the background are far beyond the neighbouring city of Palmerston.

The Butcher Shop, Apiti

Once a thriving town hewn from rugged bush in the late 1870's Apiti, like many isolated rural towns, has fallen from grace. What you cannot see is the great community spirit of the farming families that remain. There is still a pub, a gas station, a hall and a school. The nearest town is still 40 minutes away.

Victoria Park, Feilding

Te Ohu and Pamuiti , Ruahine Ranges

This was our backyard up until a few months ago. The Ruahine Ranges in the background up in the Pohangina Valley. Pretty rugged up there - deer and pig to be hunted in the backcountry. I have very mixed feelings about these images - for me , I can smell the warm grass, hear the crickets signal Autumn approaching , see the clouds blow through, and distant sounds of cattle.

No matter where Kim and I go in this world, the five years we spent here will go with us always.
We learnt an awful lot about ourselves , and the goodness of people that still exists in the remote countryside........

The Stump

I've always taken photographs. Its about elements and contrast - hard/soft, smooth/rough natural/manmade curve/line monochrome/colour .... A good photographer breaks everything down into smaller relationships, detailing that which escapes the hurried eye.

When in my 20's I would come home from work and grab something quick to eat, be in the darkroom until 2 or 3am when my eyes wouldnt focus anymore, hung over from the chemicals... and be happy that my whole nights' production amounted to one or two "keepers". I would take excess of 500 rolls of film a year, print perhaps 10% of the negatives, keep just one or two prints as my total output. Of those, only 5% or so would ever be framed or galleried for other to see.

There are two kinds of photographer - the selfish ones and the sharing ones. Back then it was an immensely private, personal experience and the opinions of others were unimportant. Because it was not about creating for others, but about the involvement in my own life and the minute detail around me.

An Introduction

Beyond the house under the shady trees, sits the old barn. Its really a shed with a tongue and groove floor, covered in straw and hay for the animals to shelter when the weather turns cold. There's a lean-to for the firewood and a tiny tractor. A 1951 truck waits restoration in vain.

There is no colour in this photo,because its all about the textures and proportions. Monochrome gives the image the haunting feel I want, a sense of desperation and solitude. So deep in the country the loudest sound standing right here is the sigh in the high trees, a faraway tinkle from the stream, and a peace that wraps around me like a blanket. What you see if different to what I feel.