Portraiture

The urge to take portraits is, for me,

one that only comes intermittently,

alas.

One rush came in the mid to late 70's.

Then there was an extremely large gap.

Another rush came about 5 years ago.

In this case I took a photo of my grandson

Stan who lived in Darwin at that time.

Now he lives in Brisbane but later this week he

will be in Auckland.

Right now I am feeling that I would

like to make some more portraits.

I'm in the mood.

But, all the same

I don't think that I have a future as

a baby photographer

Central Otago

I'm finding that I am missing Central Otago.

I had the experience of living for a year

in this Ernst Plischke house overlooking Alexandra

and the Clutha River and a year like that gets

into your bones.

The top photo is from the driveway, the lower

photo is from the balcony on the opposite side

of the house. There were often magnificent clouds,

these reminding me of Dali.

Happy New Year

I wanted to wish you a happy new year

two or three days ago,

but I couldn't find a happy photo in my archives.

Have dug quite deep and found this one, taken

in 2005, in Whanganui.

I did print up an edition I remember, the image

being roughly the same size as you see on your

screen. The edition will be somewhere in the many drawers

that I have in this studio.

Stony Batter, Waiheke Island 2008

Back here in my studio in New Plymouth and in the

peace of the New Year holidays, I'm able to trawl

through some photos that I took a couple of years ago

but not ever printed them up for show.

Here is one that I took on Waiheke Island.

The graffiti is old, dating back to the Second World War.

Fuchsia

A few days ago I visited friends in Devonport.

In their fecund garden there is a fuchsia, chest

high at least, consequently the flowers are pendulous, hanging in a way that

enhances their sculptural nature.

This flower is a first generation descendent

of a specimen that flourished on Herald Island,

in the upper reaches of the Waitemata, under

the Harbour Bridge, bearing right towards

Whenuapai, Hobsonville, and Kumeu and below Greenhithe

near Paremoremo.

I lived there for several years

and this flower has come from there.

HMS Herald named it when they went on an exploratory cruise while having brought

the Treaty of Waitangi down to Auckland from the Bay of Islands for signing and had a few days to spare.

They were able to circumnavigate Herald Island then, now there is a causeway and heavy

silting although snapper still come up here to breed. The mangroves too

are flourishing and they support an abundance of life.