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.


Stone Symposium

In New Plymouth at present, on a beautiful location on the foreshore,
there are 25 people carving andesite, a local stone is found in abundance here.
I did a course on sculpting with this stone but found that working with grinders and sanders for days on end was not particularly to my liking. It is a noisy and dusty process and andesite is as hard as steel. After that I switched to Fimo.

The course did however give me an appreciation of just what it takes to approach a boulder and try to make something of it so I’ve been to visit the symposium two or three times.

One of my favourite pieces is a kiwi, done by a Belgian, Pierre Closset. Apparently he has never seen a kiwi, and judging by the work he hasn’t even looked too closely at a photo of one either, yet there is a freshness and comicality to his sculpture.

Another piece that I liked was this one by a local, Renate Verbrugge. Looking like
a large plankton, I have found that it holds my attention.

Here is a link to the symosium’s website. Do visit it, it is very well constructed, with lots of
information.

Tooth Stories

First of all Happy New Year to all my visitors. I’ve been off-line for quite a while I know, very sorry about that. Special thanks to those who sent me messages enquiring as to my whereabouts and wellbeing!

For several years, deep under a very old crown on a bottom tooth, I had an abcess. My excellent dentist had been monitoring it and a couple of years ago put in a drain right down through the crown, through the root canal into the infection. (Those of you who don’t enjoy the thought of a long slow root canal had better skip the rest of this post) While having a check up between Christmas and New Year, the temporary filling was taken out from the drain, because from the outside it seemed that the abcess was no longer there and perhaps it was time to put in a permanent filling.

Unfortunately a tiny trace of infection was found to be still in place, so I had to go on another round of antibiotics to see if it could be wiped out once and for all. Within hours of being home I could feel some pain and swelling. Foolishly, instead of ringing my dentist I left it for a few days believing that the antibiotics must work. Also it was holidays and the surgery was closed. That was my mistake because it let the bacteria spread beyond the lower jaw and throughout my body. I began to have hot and cold fevers and then as it advanced I got the shakes. I had developed a fullblown case of blood poisoning. Now, after much medical treatment I am beginning to feel better. Part of the treatment involved removing the tooth and making an incision in the side of my jaw. And more antiobiotics of course.

I was very sad about losing to tooth. I was attached to it, physically and emotionally. I even cried. It had served me well.

I was, however, very glad to live in an age of modern medicine. In earlier times
I may well have died, blood poisoning was often fatal. My maternal grandmother died of it.

On the other hand, days and days of high fever was quite interesting. It’s an altered state of consciousness. I was reminded of hearing novelist Elizabeth Knox describe how The Vintners Luck came to her during a high fever, seemingly out of nowhere.


Elasmosaur

At a museum here in New Plymouth there is a display or
fossils found in this country. This is one from the exhibition
that I was especially interested in, mainly because of the
teeth. I shot this photo of it through the display glass with my
little pocket Leica.


This particular skull, in this case a replica I imagine, the original
being so valuable,
was found by Joan Wiffen, in the Hawkes Bay area. She was the amateur
fossil hunter who was the first the prove that dinosaurs had at one
stage lived in New Zealand. This was contrary to current thinking.

Piano

Exactly 12 months ago I began learning the piano and I bought this
one at a piano store here in New Plymouth. When I returned home
from Invercargill recently, after 4 months I noticed how out of tune my piano had become.
I was quite encouraged to discover that I could hear how out of tune it was.
This felt like progress.

For only the second time in my life I saw a piano being tuned. I was surprised, although I
shouldn’t have been, at how there was a sophisticated electronic device to assist the process.


Joe 90

A toy that was for sale in the latest Art + Object auction.
While I don’t particularly want to own it, and I don’t think that I ever
saw the TV series, there is something about the design that catches my eye.

It reminds me a little of one of my favourite photos of the last couple of years, a
boat cradle that I saw on Waiheke Island. The photo was taken with a camphone.



Four Portraits

A couple of postings below, I have mentioned the
topic of portraits. Occasionally I get in the mood and
seem to make quite a number of them over a short period of time.

Here are four all taken in about 1984.

More Book

Auckland University Press are planning to publish a book about my work this coming year with the date for publication currently set for September. It will not be associated with an exhibition.

Part of the book is going to be a selection of 80 photos, a selection made by me from my entire photographic career. I must have all files in the publishers hands by the end of January, the list of the images by the beginning. There is quite a lot to putting this together so this Christmas there is not a lot of putting my feet up with a good book.

Here is a wall view of some of the those photos on the short list.

Double Duck


Portraiture
To my regret, I don’t take that many portraits, especially
in colour. However, here is one that I took last night.
This is Michiko my daughter-in-law.


Cup and Spoon

Two pages from a Japanese children’s book that as babysitter
I was asked to read last night.

I would like to see these images made Biennale large. Something about them
reminded me of this photo that I took in 2003. It’s called Fork & Spoon.


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