Tahuna Torea

Here I am, with a friend.

I'm the one on the right.

My friend's name is Tony Bishop, from

Invercargill, and in Auckland for

the music festival

the Big Day Out.

Nick Cave was one

of the musicians

who had inspired

him to make the long

pilgrimage.

In this photo we are at Tahuna Torea,

a nature reserve on the Eastern outskirts

of Auckland. The restoration

has been going for about 30 years,

the area narrowly missing being filled in with

rubbish.

The photo was taken with my iPhone.

Sealion

A sealion at the Auckland Zoo.

The Portrait

My interest in human portraiture

seems to wax and wane.

I wish that it wasn't that way

but that just seems to be

how it is.

Lately however, I've been meeting

quite a number of Japanese children

who are so interesting that

I can't help getting out

my camera.

Flowers at the Cemetery.

Yesterday I visited my parents remains

at Snapper Rock Cemetery in Auckland.

I spent some time there, wandering around

looking at the graves and enjoying the peaceful

environment.

My eye was continually attracted to the bunches

of artificial flowers that were dotted around.

Many of them had an attractive faded pastel look.

I've often said that sometimes I photograph

objects to see what they look like when

they are photographed. This

image falls into that category.

Handbag at Starkwhite

Tonight I went to an opening

at Starkwhite in Karangahape Road

in Auckland.

It was a jovial event.

People were happy.

Reluctantly, I had to leave

quite early

but as I was about to do so

I noticed this handbag sitting

on the polished concrete floor

that is such a feature of this

gallery.

The only camera I had on me

was the one in my iPhone.

From my iPhone I emailed it to my laptop

which was back at my batcave.

From my laptop I have sent it out via

Photoshop to this site that you are now reading.

There is probably a way that I could

have sent it directly from my iPhone

to this site but that path I have yet to learn.

Remarkably, to me, the picture

reminds me of a Gavin Hipkins

Starkwhite are his

Auckland dealers so his work is often

on these walls.

Rotorua

This audience was waiting for a geyser

to start erupting.

What I hadn't realised was that this particular geyser

could be induced to start by putting 300 grams

of washing powder down its throat.

The advantage of this was that it could be advertised as

coming to life at 10.30 every morning.

Actually, the guide gave a very good description

of how the washing powder worked.

It had to do with surface tension.

Rotorua Trees

Recently I spent a couple of days

in Rotorua, scouting for a photograph.

This view caught my attention.

Rosella

While driving through a pine forest just south

of Rotorua I saw the bright colours of this parakeet

lying on the road.

Although it was It was directly in the path of tyres

even 16 wheeler trucks,

it was relatively unscathed apart from being dead.

The colour of its feathers was so vivid that

even after I had steered around it and driven on towards my destination I made a

u-turn. Two in fact.

These birds are Australian but they have colonised

parts of New Zealand

probably with human assistance.

My father, who until the last years of his life

kept birds, had a Rosella in a aviary. It think it was a he, they have brighter colours,

He endlessly paced back and forth on his perch,

and in a nervous equivalent of nailbiting

pulled his feathers out with his beak so that large patches

of him were bald.

Even as a small boy and not particularly schooled in empathy

for fellow citizens of this planet I always felt sorry

for the poor creature.

The body of this paticular Rosella is in a deep freeze.

Bees and Beehives

When I was a boy

our family usually had a beehive

or two, sometimes more, somewhere on the property

providing honey for us all.

This was rural New Zealand.

Takanini and Taheke for example.

Ohaeawai too.

If, usually on a hot summer's day,

a Queen left the hive and a swarm followed her

we were there in the family Vauxhall on the gravel roads,

in dusty pursuit.

There would be a box and a handsaw in the boot,

there to collect the swarm when they landed

usually on a branch surrounding their Queen.

Once safely in the box we would bring them home

and give them a new residence alongside the

previous tenants.

I always kept my distance, but for some reason

my father had no fear of being stung at all.

He handled the bees as if they were old friends.

Tennis

A couple of weeks ago I went to the tennis here

in Auckland.

Here is Maria Sharapova playing.

She's at the far end, serving.

(click on the image to enlarge it.)