Week 24 Composition: Contrast

Posted by robeanne

Contrasts.

Both these photos were taken in Tauranga. The first is in the early evening in winter as the clouds turned at the end of a cold but clear day. Taken by my passenger as we crossed the causeway, so strictly not mine, but we spotted the sky and since I was driving, she took the photo.  Not bad from a moving car!

sunset with red elipsical clouds against a blue sky above flat water

The second is mid afternoon down at the hockey turf where the bright winter sun provided some stark contrasts between the white salt mountains and the blue of the sky and turf.

blue hockey turf being watered with rainbow and white salt mounds

And this is an extra – a shot that I spotted when my husband came in from the garden with a harvest of chillis and showed me this curly one. There was a basket of limes from the garden sitting on the bench and the red and yellow made a great shot.

red chilli in the shape of a spiral or curl on top of bright yellow limes

Week 23: No Peeking!

Posted by robeanne

Week 23: Vision: No Peeking

Shoot as if you were using a film camera. That means that you will not look at the photographs you’ve taken until they are downloaded on your computer.

Vision: This category is designed to push you to go beyond sight, to insight; to take inspiration and make it a reality. Vision exists in your imagination and is revealed your photographs; expressing something otherwise invisible. Developing a Vision for your work is showing to others what you see in your mind’s eye.

Given that I mainly use my phone for taking photos, this was difficult – the temptation to look is just too much!

So, here are a couple of interpretations of this week’s theme;

1. One of the activities I get teachers to do as part of a workshop about the Digital Technologies Curriculum, is a lego challenge. In pairs, they choose the same 5 lego pieces – colour, shape etc. Then sit back to back so they can’t see each other. One person creates a model with their 5 pieces and then has to give the instructions for the other to complete the same model. It is a fascinating thing to observe – they don’t always come out with the same model!

three images showing two people sitting back to back making a model with lego pieces. one image shows two models the same, the other shows two completely different models

2. The second image is probably more consistent with the intended idea. As I was driving through along the Forgotten Highway one misty morning, the light was beautiful. Clouds hanging in the valleys with the morning sun threatening to break through. I decided to pull in and try to get a photo. As I walked along the fence line I like the look of the raindrops on the barbed wire and thought that would make a cool photo. Then I noticed the spider’s web. The loght was shining directly into my face and I really had no idea if I had captured it or not. Given that I was on the road, I couldn’t look at it until I got home that evening. Pretty pleased with the result.

spider's web spun between barbed wire fencing against a lush green field and misty sky

Week 22: Door

Posted by robeanne

Week 22: Door.  A symbol of transition, a door or a gate providing a passage way….

As I travel around NZ for work, I see some beautiful and interesting sites. I am currently working with a group of small primary schools in the Taumarunui area. The villages in which they are situated are fascinating. Many have seen better days when there was a bigger population and a vibrant community. I took this photo in the small village of Ongarue. Once a thriving township with a railway supported by the timber industry. The forestry work is much less than it used to be although it is having a wee bit of a renaissance as a result of the tourist trade. It is the starting point of the mountain bike track The Timber Trail. Some of the old buildings have been converted into accommodation for the bikers, it looks like there may also be a cafe in the summer months. Maybe this old rugby club building will be re-purposed?

I wonder what we would find if we went through that door? What memories of rugby games, of wins and losses, of tries nearly scored, of the well-timed pass and the try saving tackles? How many generations of boys and men played proudly for their village and how many marched away bravely to different sorts of battles never to return? What of their children and grandchildren? Where are they now? What of the lives of the womenfolk who supported tirelessly on the sidelines, prepared after match suppers and washed and dried woollen jerseys and socks? And, I am making assumptions here, maybe there was an Ongarue women’s team that broke through stereotypes and just as proudly as the men represented their town on the pitch?

old rugby club building in the mist in a small village in rural new zealand

Week 21 Product

Posted by robeanne

Week 21 Product: Imagine your image in a catalog or a magazine. It’s not as easy as it sounds.

I didn’t really get hooked into this one – I am not a technical photographer and really couldn’t be bothered to set something up. For me, if I can’t ‘see’ a photo, then it doesn’t get taken!

However, I did remember taking a photo in the sunshine on our first real campervan trip a few weeks ago. We had bought some really nice vodka the evening before we headed away and decided to take it with us.

We parked up in a tiny, remote campsite in the Whirinaki forest, called The Sanctuary Campsite, 5km down a very washed out metalled road. It was lunch time and since we were there for the night and didn’t have to drive anywhere, we decided to have an aperitif before lunch. I was sitting in the van as Nigel prepared it and when I looked down, the sun was casting shadows of the bottles and the glasses. It isn’t a technically good photo, nor is it even very well composed or framed but I like the clarity of colours and the light. In terms of it being an advertisement, it isn’t really any good either as you can’t see the full name of the distillery!  But if you want to check out the Cardrona Distillery, it is well worth it!

clear glass bottle and two glasses with clear liquid in, castig shadows in the sunlight on a grey table

The only other ‘product’ type photo opportunity that jumped out at me was the Instagram images I create for Craft Hamilton – a craft beer bar in Hamilton, New Zealand. It is our local haunt and I enjoy creating whacky photos for them!

Here are a couple;

collage of photos showing beer being poured and the name of the bar "Craft" vertically on th left hand side of the image

the menu of a bar vertically on the right hand side, the name of a bar Craft" on the left hand side, the background is glasses on a bar and a full glass of beer