The next stage......

After two and a half years using public transport around Auckland city I am finally independently mobile. Its been challenging, but also rewarding to be confined in general to the downtown. But I've been making plans for a number of projects and today I was able to get out on my motorbike and begin looking at how I'm going to turn these ideas into images....

I won't say too much more on where I'm headed with this but I'm looking forward to photographing New Zealand's people and their stories and sharing them with you all.

But I will say thanks to everyone who has helped me get around over the last couple of years and supported me to get back to being mobile!

Sunset in downtown Auckland

I've photographed this spot before a long time ago but this afternoon I was on the way home and saw the awesome colours in the sky from a distance and knew this spot would make for an awesome shot... I fought my way through the after work rush hour traffic to make it before the light disappeared and after a couple of shots this is what I got.... pretty stoked with the result. I love the effect of exposing manually for the highlights and letting the shadows fall into near blackness.

Street series

Its always good to have a few projects on the go. Over the last year or so Ive been creating a series of street shots experimenting with the contrast between light and shadows and the way we move amongst it.

I love that the way a camera sensor records the light is so highly contrasty and gives a particular darkness to the final image.

high st

I really love to make interesting images of the things I see on the street. As I spend more and more time in the studio with lights and models I get quite far away from the gritty stuff I love about photography. Its pretty important for me to get out for a walk with my camera, sit down on the dirty pavement, watch the world go by, chat to some crazy people and snap some fun shots.

Ordered chaos

This is one of my favorite images I've shot recently. Its a combination of my two favorite subjects to shoot, architecture and street. There are so many lines and reflections that create a whole lot of chaos.

But I find myself being drawn back to the stillness of the guys standing and chatting on the escalator as they arrive in the city.

Timing

Sometimes life is all about timing, and if you wait long or short enough......

Thats definitely the case with capturing life on the streets, find a cool spot with an interesting background and light, sit back relax and watch city life.

Light and shadows

Living in downtown Auckland for a few months has been a real change for me, I've been spending a fair amount of time exploring and looking with my camera. Having lived in small towns and the mountains for so long the concrete and glass of the city is quite a foreign environment. And theres people everywhere, whats up with that?
I've spent hours experimenting with shadows and shutter speed creating a series of street images of people moving around the city in amongst the shadows of the buildings.
Theres a strong movement in photography with High Dynamic Range software to show details in all areas of an image. I quite like the concept of negative black space in the shadows and the strong lines framing objects and people. I think the dark areas leave space for imagination to run a little wild and force your eyes to move around.
Today I got sick of these images sitting unseen on my hard drive so I thought I'd share one from Britomart.

Jus fun

I like living in the city. Sometimes its just nice to walk out the door with my camera and no pressure, walk along and find somewhere cool to make a picture and wait for the right moment and composition to come along.....

Street life

I guess this is kind of a follow up to my last post about the fact and fiction of photography. For me street photography is the one of the purest forms of photography in that it is about capturing unplanned moments of everyday life on the city streets. There's no posing, no smiling for the camera, in fact hopefully anyone in frame doesn't even know a picture is being taken.

For me street photography is as close to fact as I can get. But then again I love to see street images in black and white which adds an element of fiction cause the majority of us don't actually see the world in black and white. But by taking away the distractions of colour we're left looking at the subjects, the shapes, the emotions or the movements of everyday life. And just by taking away the colour we create a whole bunch of questions which then add back the fantasy as the viewer has to make their own assumptions on what colours were where.

I like to set myself personal projects to push myself and keep trying new techniques. I have a series I've been doing for a while shooting from the shadows of people on the move. By exposing only for the light the final image has large areas of dark shadow which creates its own mystery and lets everyone make their own fantasy from the facts.

Plus I jus like lurking in the shadows watching the world go by.

Auckland B-Boys

I was walking home from a gig Friday night when I came across these guys on Queen St. Reminded me of a long while ago when the crews used to drag their vinyl downtown and strut their moves.

These guys were pretty damn good apparently theyre in the King Kapisi video.... George Reuben spinning.

I love finding random fun like this