Blog

Peter was a great believer in communicating about photography and got into blogging in its early days.

His blog ran, with some gaps, from 30 November 2006 to 2 September 2018.

You can visit the earliest entries via archived links on the right hand side of this page.

More Skulls
Yesterday I was tidying up my studio and made this arrangement.
I’ve photographed skulls before. The one below is from a monkey.



Gone Fishing

Last night I cooked some fresh Snapper, caught here off New Plymouth and for sale the same day, an advantage of living in a port town. In Central Otago and Southland I eat the southern Blue Cod, and of course, Bluff oysters. Well, once so far this season I admit, but there will be more to come I hope.

Before I began preparation of these fillets, I recorded this image. There is an element of flaying, an excoriation, an exposure of the underlying structure that I like. I am planning to photograph a skinned rabbit while I am in the South. Entrails I would like to work with as well. As a boy I often had to deal with entrails, of fish and fowl mainly. Sometimes sheep, sometimes rabbits.
I

Here is a photo that I made more than 10 years ago. This chicken also was
going to be part of my dinner.


Marbles

Here is a photo of someone’s marble collection here in New Plymouth.
I’m here to spend a few days in my studio.


Christchurch, Thursday NIght

Last Thursday evening I was in Christchurch walking to a German restaurant called Bismark, incidentallly, a restaurant I recommend, when Justin Paton, one of my companions, seeing me looking at this arrangement on an alley wall, said: ‘that looks like a Peter Peryer photo’.

He was right. This photo does look like a Peter Peryer photo but if you asked me why, I would have difficulty explaining it in words. Yet, Justin, in a few sentences would put his finger on it. Succintly, too I imagine.

The photo does remind me of an installation photo that took, about 5 years ago, of a work made by the collective, et al.


Robot Room


Today, at Central Stories, a museum here in Alexandra, Central Otago, Jamie kindly showed me a room that I had never been in before. In fact, I didn’t know it existed! It is used for storage of parts of gold mining equipment. This town was built on gold.

When I saw this room I thought that it could be an exhibition just as it was. There was something about it that was perfect. It could almost be in a Biennale, although transportation of it could be a problem. 

Lighting was dim and I didn’t have a tripod so this photo is a little soft. I’m not even sure that photography is a suitable medium for conveying the power of this chamber.


The Museum Detective

Recently it was my pleasure to meet Dr Joanna Cobley, and to welcome her here at Henderson House in Alexandra. Joanna is known as The Museum Detective, a great title. 
Here is a podcast link to an interview of me that she posted on The Museum Detective’s site.





B-2 Spirit

Last night I watched a documentary on television about the development of
the B-2 Spirit often known as The Stealth. First flown about 20 years ago, there are only about 20 of these in existence.
Although I’m  known as a photographer I’m interested in art in all its forms, and this plane looks to me like sculpture of the highest order. Unfortunately it is unlikely that I will actually see one.

Also of interest to me was a diagram that was used to demonstrate how it absorbs 
radar signals to make it ‘invisible’. It makes me want to get out my pencils and start drawing.

More Autumn Colours

From time from time to time visitors to my site 
send or show me their photos in response to those that I have been posting.
Here is one made by Haruna Murayama, a Japanese friend of mine here in Alexandra.
Wow! It was taken two or three weeks ago near Arrowtown and this view will have now changed
otherwise I would have been driving up there at daylight tomorrow! Unfortunately she only showed me the photo yesterday.
This is a photo that I recently took of Haruna. 
I rather like this as a portrait.


Winter is Coming

This is the look that the countryside around here has at present. There is great beauty to it
although to capture it with a camera is another matter. A few hours after I took this, snowflakes began falling around my home. I was so excited that it didn’t even occur to me to try to take a photo.

Another photo that I took today is one of this gate. Sometimes I have to take a photo of something in order to see what it looks like when I’ve taken a photo of it. I’ve looked at these gates so many times as I’ve driven past, that I thought it best to try to sort out what the attraction was. I hope that these photos are not in some way autobiographical.

Dear Students

I am writing this posting as a general response to the e-mails that I receive from you, e-mails in which you request information about my work and practice.

The sheer numbers of these e-mails, two yesterday for example, makes it impossible for me to answer them personally. I hope that you appreciate this. I am, contrary to what you might imagine, most of the time very busy. It takes a lot of effort to run a career and and to keep up with the production of new images let alone leave time for rest and recreation. There is certainly no time for helping you with your homework as well.

My contribution is my work. That is what I offer you. As a bonus, I keep a blog, in which I describe much of the thinking behind the images that I produce. Thank you for your understanding.

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