Author: Peter Peryer

This author has written 801 articles

Begonia

 
 
One of the jewels of New Plymouth is
Pukekura Park. Adjoining Brooklands
where concerts are held, indeed WOMAD is being
held there this very weekend. It is an extensive parkland, developed
for more than a century. There are 52 hectares of it. (128 acres)
 
Included in the park are some glass covered excavations
that were cut into a hillside. Entered through a short tunnel,
these structures provide an environment where
a variety of plants flourish.
 
The begonias have recently been
enjoying their time.
Here is a selection of them.
 
 

Chinese Lantern Festival

A week or so I was in Albert Park,
in Central Auckland. I was enjoying watching
preaparations for the Chinese Lantern Festival,
an event to be run over the following weekend,
an event to which, as it turned out, an estimated 180,000
people came along.

I’m sorry that I didn’t see the lanterns when they were
alight for I may have found a subject or two,
however I am glad to have found this one.

Anthropomorphisation.

How nice to have a chance to use this word.
The imbuing of human qualities upon something
nonhuman.

I am often asked what my themes are and I would
say that this is one of them. I recognise that
I often visit this space.

Now I don’t get up in the morning and think
today I am going to take a photo of something
and make it look anthropomorphic. It doesn’t work
like that. Instead, many of the objects that attract me
enough for me to want to photograph them
just seem to turn out that way. I can’t help it.

This gun is an example. It has come out
looking as if it has a personality.

Rhino



The rhino enclosure at Auckland Zoo
caught my eye, but not because
of the rhino. The rhino are there, two of them in the distance,
but they were only
part of the overall attraction.

Playground



A post or so ago I showed a photo of a headless
turtle, in a children’s playground in Whanganui.

Here is another animal from the same site.

Turtle 2



Once again a turtle has caught my eye.
This behemoth lives at the Auckland Zoo.

Although, oddly enough, when I look
at the photo now, the turtle looks
quite small. Well, not massive anyway
as it is in reality.

Something, in the course of making the photo,
has changed the sense of scale.
I think that it is one of my themes.
I’ve noticed it in other photos, the one
below for example.

Turtle



There is an intriguing children’s playground
in Whanganui, with all sorts of animal sculptures, some,
like this one, have been well loved.

If you happen to be in
Whanganui you can’t miss the spot, it’s on the banks of the river,
on the inland side.

The first question that I have about the image, is of course, the
usual one. Should I just discard it or should I stay with it,
maybe make a print and have a look.

The next question is, should I Photoshop out some of the white marks, the toes
for example? Try tidying up the paintwork and see if I like it better, or not.

I especially like the sun flare on the body, and the solid disc of shadow
on the ground.

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.
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