blowing bubbles

Yes, this post is all about sandwiches. Beautiful sandwiches of different plumage that have been carefully crafted to ensure a supreme culinary experience. These sandwiches are for rods and cones.

Yesterday I ventured out with my trusty Bronica ETRsi and captured a few bits of Wellington on black and white film. It had been 6 months since I last took street photos and it was an invigorating experience. After taking the photos I decided to manually develop the film which was equally rewarding. It had been 6 years since I’d last done that. The feeling you get when you open the developing tank and you see that there’s something on the film is one of utter joy.

Here’s a selection of the 15 photos I took:

I still have to get the hang of it a little. I had pushed the film from 400 to 800 ISO to get more grain and I think that confused me so I didn’t develop quite long enough.
Only one way to get better: more practise!

New Zealand certainly has its fair share of those. And I’ve been bad not photographing many of them.

This sky and rare “rainbow” were spotted over Idaho. The “rainbow” arc spanned several hundred square miles of sky and lasted for about an hour. It isn’t a real rainbow as such, but rather:

The circumhorizontal arc is caused by light passing through wispy, high-altitude cirrus clouds. The sight occurs only when the sun is very high in the sky (more than 58° above the horizon). What’s more, the hexagonal ice crystals that make up cirrus clouds must be shaped like thick plates with their faces parallel to the ground.

When light enters through a vertical side face of such an ice crystal and leaves from the bottom face, it refracts, or bends, in the same way that light passes through a prism. If a cirrus’s crystals are aligned just right, the whole cloud lights up in a spectrum of colors.

Read the full article on NationalGeographic.com.

I hereby also promise to photograph a few of the beautiful skies that grace Wellington during the next few weeks.

Words fail me. You’ll have to have a look for yourself. Note that these videos might offend some people. They’re very… crazy. Read the rest of this entry »

It’s always refreshing to hear someone talk with great ability and passion. It’s equally refreshing to hear someone talk about our human society in a humane way. Former New Zealand Prime Minister David Lange did this on quite a few occasions. One most notable occasion being at the Oxford Union debate in 1985 where he argued that “nuclear weapons are morally indefensible”. A debate which he won and for which he was accorded a standing ovation from both sides of the house. This speech can be read and listened to online and if you don’t know who Mr. David Lange was and/or are up for a speech that was spoken both from the heart and from the mind, I suggest you do check it out.

Also, below you can listen to ‘Nuclear Weapons Are Morally Indefensible’, a derivative work incorporating audio from the recording of David Lange’s Oxford Union debate speech. The accompanying music was composed and produced by Andrew B. White, aka Tomorrowpeople.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

To download this MP3 file, please visit publicaddress.net.

Through a fortunate coincidence I was recently introduced to the work of Russian born illustrator Ivan Bilibin (1876-1942), the beauty of which blew me away.

A large number of his haunting and expressive drawings revolve around Slavic mythology and are usually set against the mountains and forests of Old Russia. Read the rest of this entry »

A UK graffiti artist going by the name of “Moose” makes his art not by painting onto walls, but by cleaning them. He’s been doing it to the ever so predictable annoyance of local authorities who are resolutely calling it vandalism. Apparently the council of Leeds has even asked him to “clean up” one of his pieces. Besides the fact that his works are obviously already clean they usually last only a few days.

The technique dubbed “grime writing” also holds interesting symbolic values. It accentuates the fact that our cities are getting increasingly dirty because of air pollution. The grey coat that covers many buildings, tunnels and streets and that is usually almost forgotten – or at least part of mundane scenery – suddenly becomes visible to all.

You can see some more of Paul Curtis aka Moose’s work at symbolix.com.

My flickr pro account is about to lose its pro status on 3 July. Another year of pro flickr goodness would cost $24.95. My problem with that is that my first year of pro flickr was free and I can actually just host the pictures myself.

What to do what to do… I like the fact that flickr is so universal and people can use it to create screensaver slideshows that display recent photos by their friends and so forth. The pro accounts also let you show the pictures in full resolution. I uploaded most of mine at huge resolutions and they’re free to be used for non-commercial ends.

If only zenphoto were out of beta. I’d love to develop some nice RSS plugins and widgets for that. It’s a nice gallery system but not quite there yet in terms of being stable and finished. It’s got great potential.

You know, to offset the seriousness.

This type of counter-attack may or may not result in serious injury, death or perky nips.

Auckland shoppers cause motorway chaos

08 June 2006

The country’s largest shopping centre opened in Auckland today and immediately created traffic chaos on the southern motorway.

Bargains, including a 36cm colour television for $49.95, and a brand name cordless jug and toaster for $30, sent thousands of shoppers to the Sylvia Park Mall in Mt Wellington, near the southern motorway.

Within an hour or so the roads were unable to cope with traffic volumes.

The southern motorway was gridlocked. Police closed two motorway off ramps leading into the complex and advised motorists to avoid the area completely or delay their trip as long as they could.

Link to article

I can’t even imagine what the inside of that mall must have looked like. A blimmin’ riot, that’s what. Also it’s usually at times like these that zombie epidemics break out with disastrous results. Loonies!