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.


The Peony

Southland has a climate ideal for growing peonies. They
need a cold winter. In Auckland they are expensive and
I didn’t really buy them but here they are $10 a bunch!

So opulent, they are remarkable. Almost blousy. Of course
it’s tempting to try to photograph them.

The bloom in the lower photograph is a hand’s breadth across.

South Island, New Zealand

Here is a map to make clearer where the localities
that I am discussing in my postings are.

Clicking on the map makes it larger. The same
is true of all photos on this blog.

Right now I am in Invercargill, down at the very bottom.
I’ve seen written that it is the southernmost city in the world. That may be true.
It is an end-of-the-line town. Anyone coming here is not en route to anywhere else, except for Stewart Island, Bluff, Riverton, small settlements like that.

It is tempting to ask oneself if towns at the end of roads, or railway lines, have a
particular personality. Do they attract a particular kind of inhabitant? I’ll let you
know if I come to any conclusions but I’m not going to be too hasty about it. It’s too
complex, although I know for sure that where ever I have gone, pretty well without exception, I have experienced overwhelming kindness and generosity.

The Final Tuesday

There are cartons everywhere as I am packing up in preparation for heading north.

I will be in Central Otago, for a couple of days, I’ve a meeting in Arrowtown, then
I have to go to Christchurch until Monday at which point I continue my journey. Hope to
cross over on the Cook Strait ferry about Tuesday. Have another couple of meetings
in Wanganui, and then, at last I’ll be within two hours drive of New Plymouth. I am estimating that I will be back there about Wednesday or Thursday. I’m looking forward to being back at my home for a while. It feels like the end of the year and I’d like to have
a restful time for a while. I’m feeling rather exhausted by the year. It seems to have been a big one, a bit too big for my taste.

It has been a very productive time down here in the South. I think that I have made several
photos that are ‘keepers’. Over the next few weeks I’m going to do some printing. While here
I’ve only made working prints.

It will be quite a moment when, tomorrow, I finally head off. A week on the road on your own is a long trip.

Four Months On

This week, after 4 months,
I am finishing my William Hodges Residency, here
in Invercargill. I have made many friends
so I’m quite busy meeting up with them to say
goodbye, for the time being at least.

On Wednesday I start making my way
back to New Plymouth. It will take me
several days, hopefully I will find a new photo along
the way.

Meanwhile there are still several friends to whom
I must pay my respects before Wednesday.


Two Cats

A painting of two cats that caught my eye.
Why I cannot explain. It just intrigues me.
It is on the wall of a friend’s house.
He painted it.

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More Cats

I don’t know what’s going on with me but recently I have been
noticing pictures of cats! I particulary like the green cat. The lilac
in the bottom image is interesting as well.

I am not even a particular lover of cats, in fact, in my
New Plymouth house they are my enemies because I am
trying to turn my garden into a bird sanctuary.

I have a tui feeding station.


Baby in Dunedin

Here is a snap I took of a baby at Billy Apple’s
opening in Dunedin last Friday.


The Portrait

Periodically, throughout my photographic career I’ve been interested
in taking portraits. Sometimes I go for years without
making a single one, sometimes I seem to get into the groove and take several
over a short space of time.

The people who I do choose to photograph seem to have a particular
look, it is as if I am staging a play and there is not a part for everyone.
I once declined an offer to do a portrait of the Dalai Lama for this very
reason.

Grant Dickie, in the photograph above, is someone who I immediately
thought that I do have a part for, even though I don’t have a script, a
conscious one anyway.


Tony Bishop

Tony, an Invercargill friend of mine has an exhibition of his paintings
at Milford Gallery in Dunedin.
On Friday night I went to his opening
and then crossed over the road to see Billy Apple’s show
at Brett McDowell Gallery, previously known as Marshall Seifert Gallery.

This is a detail from one of Tony’s paintings and I have put it on this posting
because for some reason the stylised way in which these sheep
have been painted made me laugh out loud. I have no idea why
but it has something to do with the way
in which there is absolutely no visual overlapping
at all between one sheep and another, something that would not happen
in real life of course.

I suspect that one of the reasons why it appealed to me so strongly
is that it illustrates a motif that persists in my work, the ‘aesthetics
of dispersal’.

Three of four months ago I took the photo below. It’s nothing more than
a sketch, but it illustrates the point.

McRaes Flat Gold Mine

In Central Otago there is a massive pit being dug as part of the process
of extracting gold. These trucks are some of the biggest in the world even though
here they look like toys. They can carry 190 tons of rock.

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