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.
On My Feet Again
Am recovering from my illness and now back on to working on putting a
book together. Tomorrow I travel to Auckland for a meeting with the
publishers to discuss various details such as design.
Here is a wall at my New Plymouth studio, where I am beginning to orchestrate the
selection of images to be included.
Cook Strait Ferry and The 100 Day Cough
The top photo shows my MacBook, and various other items, as we headed out from
Picton into the open water, described on that day as ‘moderate’ I am pleased to
report. Any stronger than that and I would have had my head over the rail, the sea beckoning for my breakfast. I am not a good sailor. Usually I am the first
Last Tuesday I caught the 10 a.m. sailing from Picton to Wellington. At 1.30 pm I drove up the exit ramp onto Wellington’s artery north and pulled into my New Plymouth driveway at 6 pm.
All the way home and a few days before that I was suffering from sore throat, voice loss, and a bark like a dog. I will spare you theclose-up photos of what I bought up except to say that it was green and oyster like. Although I must admit there was a teeny voice in me that said make big Cibachrome prints of these. They could be impressive.
As soon as I arrived home I crashed onto my bed, beached, for several days my travel bags sat there spewing out shirts socks and other sundries.
The only photographs that I wanted to take were of this famous duo. Sorry about the hills etc.
After two nights in Christchurch spending time
with family, I continued my journey north, taking a break
a couple of hours later at Kaikoura. The rock
formations in that area are very photogenic not that
I have so far managed to find an image that I wanted to
retain. This was a quick snap which will give me
an idea of these remarkable formations
look like when I photograph them. Sometimes I have
to photograph something in order for me to see
what it looks like when I photograph it.
Tonight I am in a motel in Picton. I’d like to spend more time
exploring this area but I am becoming anxious to reach home,
and I’m taking a ferry to Wellington in the morning.
Another time perhaps.
As I mentioned in a previous posting my four month residency
in Invercargill has ended and now I am, in stages, driving back to
my house and studio in New Plymouth.
I decided rather than taking the usual route via Dunedin,
and then up the coast to Christchurch, that I would take a more
inland direction, over Lindis Pass, through Twizel. For someone who has spent
most of my life in the North Island, this is startling country.
There is miles of dry brown landscape with barely a speck of green. It’s a
long way from the rain forest that I know so well.
I returned to State Highway 1 just north of Timaru and
continued to Christchurch from there.
I haven’t managed to take many photos on this journey, just
don’t seem to have come across many objects that caught
my eye, and on other occasions, saw something but was too
caught up in traffic to stop, or in too much of a hurry to make the
next destination. Here is one building that I did stop for.
Here is my car enjoying the view over the hills surrounding
Alexandra. Parts of Central Otago are classed as semi-arid
and are the nearest that New Zealand has to desert.
This region regularly records the highest and the lowest
temperatures in the country. The day that I took these photos
it was 33 degrees C.
In Southland, on islands off Invercargill, it is a big tradition among the Ngai Tahu, no-one else allowed, to pull the chicks of
the Sooty Shearwater which they call Titi, out of their burrows and
eat them, after cooking that is. Thousands of them are taken every year.
Two nights ago I tried them for the first time in my life. They
were delicious and I was surprised.
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.
