art – Sandy's Views – Photography

Splash Of Colour

February 16, 2019February 16, 2019Posted in photographyTagged art, art photography, photo, photography, travelLeave a comment

I’ve got a new thing, I found this cool App for my iPad which allows me to covert photos to Black and White then colour in certain parts, back to the original colour. Like a sort of Art Photo thing. What do you reckon?

8E73096E-15A7-482A-A18E-9AD3143225F7 — Himatangi Beach

Kiwi Greenery

June 27, 2018June 27, 2018Posted in New Zealand, photography, TravelTagged art, greens, landscapephotography, landscapes, photography, travel, travelphotography, wilderness1 Comment

A selection of New Zealand awesomeness, in predominantly green hues!

Mt Naki Rail Bridge — Taranaki Rail Bridge

Long Exposure stream — Long Exposure Stream

Doubtful Sound Waterfall — Doubtful Sound

Lake Manapouri Reflections — Lake Manapouri

Well mostly green.

Change Of Scenery

March 27, 2018Posted in New Zealand, photography, TravelTagged architecture, art, aviation, Culture, Driving, Kiwi, motorsport, New Zealand, photography, powerboats, streetlife, travel4 Comments

I travel around a large chunk of New Zealand a lot, I also regularly visit other parts of New Zealand than my local bit. I’m always on the lookout for something pleasing to Photograph as hopefully these pages will show. I trust you are enjoying the images so far.

However…On my travels, I see other stuff, the other New Zealand. The bits you don’t read about in the guide books, or don’t think of when you typically think of our country, or maybe you do but you take it for granted. I decided to document a bit of it. I set up a new Instagram account called @kiwiay for that purpose. Come and have a look, follow the account. I’ll be, or have been posting this sort of thing.

Driftwood — Rustic garden art or driftwood overload

Mural — Derelict dairy factory on the surf highway in Taranaki. In New Zealand we have many derelict buildings as monuments to our inability to pull derelict buildings down. So instead we often paint a cheery or quirky mural on one or more of the walls. This shows that as well as having a lack of efficient and effective reclamation facilities, we are also arty.

Old Holden — It’s road works season in New Zealand. Because it’s the end of the financial year, all the councils are spending the last of their budgets on dubious road maintenance projects to ensure they can maintain their road maintenance funding next year. In NZ we don’t have modern phased mobile traffic lights at our roadworks, we still have the Stop/Go sign being held by a person. This is Paul, a Stop/Go guy

Rail mural — Every old warehouse wall should have black and white murals and a dragons head sticking out of the wall

We sometimes like to give amusing and trade or location associative names to our drinking establishments. Opunake on the ‘Surf Highway’ in Taranaki is known for its surfing opportunies as is the rest of the Taranaki Coast. This obviously was once simply the Opunake Hotel, but has been revitalised and rebranded the ‘Surf Inn’. I hope they didn’t pay anyone too much money to come up with that catchy title. Which reminds me I must go out to Scott’s Ferry in the Rangitikei again

Top dresser 7 — Time to start chucking some fertiliser on the paddocks ay? The good old top dressing Bi-plane putting ‘super’ on the farms of NZ

Kaos pass — Kiwis like going really fast any chance we get. We’re pretty awesome at motor sports of many kinds. This is Power Boat racing on the Manawatu river.

Ormondville Viaduct — Old wooden viaduct above our old farm in Southern Hawkes Bay. Notice all the excellent ‘health and safety’ and harm prevention measures in place. I don’t think this rail line gets used anymore

Letter boxes side view — 5a is a bit farther along the track.

Air NZ — An aircraft from our national airline Air New Zealand making its way into one of our provincial airports. flying around New Zealand can be a bit hairy sometimes

Gun Tunnel Grafitti_ — It’s nice that young people want to put their own flavour on the relics of the 2nd World War in New Zealand. Like in these old Harbour defence Artillery Emplacement tunnels

Busy Bee Dairy — The great New Zealand dairy. This is a fine example of this iconic establishment.

Eltham Nana Jaques — Thats a nice memorial to Nana Jacques, obviously much loved, I bet she’d be very proud.

Hawkes Bay Wool Shed Shutes — Shutes, for when the shearing is complete

Canterbury Maori Haka — No day is complete in New Zealand without a rousing Maori haka, I think this was just a practice one though, or maybe these Wahine were saying hooray to the South Island.

Cuba Espressoholic — Kiwis drink more coffee than just about anyone. Often served by someone who looks and dresses like a gay lumberjack

tackle — Footy is the lifeblood of New Zealand, some good mates enjoying the day.

Marton Racecourse 2 — Wonder when the next race meeting is, I believe the last one was in 1980.

Opunake Dairy — Classic dairy, with updated paint job. Tip Top work. I’ve never been in that dairy.

Kunekune — This is the New Zealand pig, the kunekune. This is a happy one because he isn’t being made into bacon.

I’ll keep you posted, as it were.

Back Home

January 6, 2018Posted in New Zealand, photography, TravelTagged abstract photography, art, beach, beachlife, canon, cityscape, cityscene, New Zealand, photography, portrait, Roadtrip, sport, sunset, travel, travelphotography4 Comments

By back home, I mean I traded the Olympus Mirrorless camera back in for a Canon. I missed having what I feel is a proper camera. A big Digital Single Reflex Camera. I like Canons so I bought the Canon 6D MkII. Actually it’s not quite as simple as that. The 6D MkII is the camera almost made for me. It’s more clever as one of Canons best ever camera’s, the 5D mkIII. I’ve also had one of those, a second hand one which I traded in for the Olympus Camera as I thought I would enjoy the drop in camera weight. It wasn’t worth the change sadly, still, you live and learn.

I wanted my own new Canon DSLR camera though and the 6D MkII came along at the perfect time. It’s got great image quality, plenty of pixels, it does a bunch of stuff I don’t care about or understand and it has built in wifi which is awesome in so many ways. It does what it says on the tin and has delivered a number of quite fetching images already. My only issue with it is that the shutter isn’t as quiet as I’d like. I know right? That’s literally the only issue. I love this camera and I’m looking forward to getting to know it better. Herewith some imagery from my 6D MkII. It’s not all about the camera though. For those who are interested, I mostly, currently only, have a Canon 24-105 L series walking round lens on the front of my camera.

Ariana and Millie — People standing in my shot, I may have asked them to.

Shepherds Delight, Himatangi Beach. This is home.

St Andrews Side — St Andrews Church, Turakina.

Turakina Cottage — I like this building.

Wake boarding one handed — KIte surfer, practicing at the new place in Foxton. It’s called ‘Off The Loop’ Cable wake boarding among other awesome adventure activities.

Weds 03-01-18 part 2 — Home, of an evening.

Muapoko Street — That’s my street at night. Awesome sunset.

Eclectic mix. See you soon.

Cuba Street

March 19, 2017Posted in New Zealand, photography, TravelTagged art, cityscape, cityscene, photography, street, streetlife, travel, travelphotography, urban, Wellington6 Comments

Cuba Street in Wellington is pretty Iconic. Cuba Street is where the cool people go, the bearded hipsters, the fashionable in mind and spirit. The wannabe’s and the once were. The right on, right now and the faded jadeds. The tattooed ladies and the skater boys. Cuba Street is a place of street food, expensive food and retro shopping. Vinyl records and vinyl furniture, probably. Quirky things on the street and in the shops. Cuba Street is colourful. I decided to spend a morning taking photos in Cuba Street. This is the work of one hour, one morning. This Sunday Morning in March.

There are many photos and (almost) no captions. Sometimes images speak for themselves.

Cuba Callum — That’s Callum, this isn’t Cuba Street, but is in Glover Park. Glover Park is just round the corner from Cuba Street. So almost Cuba Street

Cuba Craft Beer — Also not actually in Cuba Street, but nearby in Glover Park

Berhampore Bus stop — OK, this isn’t in Cuba Street. This is Berhampore. But it’s very colourful.

Abstract stuff

February 25, 2017February 25, 2017Posted in photography, TravelTagged abstract, abstract photography, architecture, art, colours, photographyLeave a comment

While I usually take photos of the great New Zealandness of New Zealand, or travel photos, or NZ Native birds, or sports. Lately I’ve been trying to see art in other things, trying to take photos you might describe as ‘Abstract’. I’m sure there is a definition somewhere. I looked up Abstract on the internet and hopefully most of these images fit that description. You tell me. Here I’m trying to see art in the everyday or the unusual. Sometimes you have to look twice, and in a different way, to see a potentially artistic photo where you might not have thought any sort of intriguing image was on offer.

Art?

abstract-graffiti — The Other Side Of The Fence.

Art, Abstract? I don’t mind what you call it, It’s good to step outside your comfort zone sometimes. I think I’ll do it more often.

‘The Big Smoke’. Auckland

November 9, 2016March 12, 2017Posted in New Zealand, photography, TravelTagged art, cityscape, holiday, New Zealand, photography, road trip, sky., travel, urban1 Comment

In New Zealand, as I believe they do in some other places, we refer to the big city as ‘The Big Smoke’. Auckland is the nearest thing we have to a big city, however it’s not very big and is more like a collection of villages. The population of Auckland is about 1.4 Million which is a big chunk of our total population of around 4.4 Million. New Zealand is quite empty of people. I have attempted to convey that by photographing some parts the inner city of our largest city. The Auckland CBD between 8.30 and 9.30am on a Saturday morning. Plus some other bits during the day.

vulcan-lane — Belgian beer at the Occidental, the pub was built by an American sailor.

wynyard-1 — Feeding winged rats at Wynard Quarter.

queeb-street — Queen Street, Auckland City.

esplanade — The Esplanade, I once won a surfing competition in there.

mt-eden-road — Mt Eden Road, Mt Eden Village, 8:30am, Sunday Morning.

up-mt-eden-road — Looking the other way, towards the city

boat-sheds — Boat sheds beside Tamaki Drive.

city-cloud — City Skyline, from Stanley Bay.

paraitai — The view rich people on Paraitai Drive have.

Auckland, it’s not always what you think.

Sunrise in the centre

May 31, 2015February 14, 2017Posted in New Zealand, photography, TravelTagged animals, art, dawn, landscape, nature, New Zealand, photography, sunrise, travelLeave a comment

The centre being the central North Island, rather than the coast. So many people take wonderful photographs of the sun coming up over the sea. That’s easy to do, all you need is an alarm clock and to point your camera East in the morning. Inland it’s a bit more of a challenge. There are hills and stuff in the way. Here are a handful of local sunrises I’ve been lucky enough to witness.