This wide angle view is on the ocean side of Westhaven Inlet and features a dune flank backed by a steep line of limestone, which forms the rugged spine of North Head. It’s a memorable scene from an Easter foray to the far side of Golden Bay in 1986, not long after my purchase of […]

Although I took it 34 years ago this composition in thirds seems to have a timeless quality. It makes a fitting follow-up to my previous post: texture remains but vibrant colour is added in this telephoto view from a terrace above the beach at Te Hapu, a private property on Nelson’s far western coast.  A […]

This unusual view at Turangi Road was an obvious candidate for monochrome. I like the four textures so suggestive of Taranaki: the skinny macrocarpas, corrugated iron, long tufts of hardy kikuyu grass and the Michael Smither-like stones and boulders. The sky was grey and cloudy behind. This scene will have eroded more since, as the […]

Winter turns to spring (in the southern hemisphere, that is) and my thoughts turn to summer, when I will re-visit this favourite place with friends – but not with the 6×7 Pentax SLR that I used here. Of course the roll film in the big camera did not have a digital stamp on it, but […]

Collectively. The quote is inspired by my reading of Drawdown, a book of solutions to global warming (with a tip of the hat also to Chris Wark, in an unrelated context).  The world is all reading a larger book, The Book of Life on Planet Earth (metaphorically), but of course some have barely begun reading […]

LOL, as I did when I read this 6-word snippet online just recently. This is Memento mori [“Remember your mortality”] meets Embedded Quote, with a colourful ornament from Te Henui cemetery, New Plymouth. What it is to be human, and of a certain age! Will any of it matter in another 50 years?

On a weekday recently I went walking with a friend up our local valley, to the Maitai caves. Our wander through the forest became quite an enchanting one (with a little mud thrown in). The day was cloudy but not too hot or cold – no insects, no people! We didn’t actually get to the […]

SEPTEMBER in my 2019 calendar! Lake Mahinapua is the first stop after Hokitika as you head south down the South Island’s West Coast. Surrounded by native forest, the lake’s a total gem left to us by the last glacial retreat ten thousand years ago. On a weekday morning in April there are few camper vans […]

An idyll of sheep grazing peacefully by a grove of cabbage trees (ti kouka), on old dunelands behind Wharariki Beach, in Nelson. This is a wider version of the image appearing as FEBRUARY in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 calendar. It was taken on the foot track to the beach – in New Zealand the grandeur […]

Our final visit with Rumi, at least for the time being; here the anxious, solitary image of Claire reinforces the simple message, one of many brevities which gleam like semi-precious stones in his meandering poetic landscapes. For New Zealanders the landscape above should also have an evocative power, as flax, ti kouka and nikau feature. […]

With this pungent comment Rumi sits at the crossroads of western and eastern mysticism. The sentiment permeates all types of introspective spirituality, and is familiar to Christians through Luke’s singular statement that “The Kingdom of God is within you”. Meanwhile it is of course a dominant theme in eastern mysticism. Rumi wrote voluminously, having no […]

Not every image in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 Calendar was actually taken in the month it displays, but this autumnal scene was a good fit for MAY, although the only hint of autumn being in the misty background. New Zealand’s native vegetation is almost entirely evergreen, but summer shows with flower stalks on the flax […]

This scene is how I found it, except for removing a fallen twig or two. Beside a grave a cherub sits on a plinth, under an elm. An artificial vine crosses her feet and a plastic wreath is nearby – I doubt that she will still be in the same position today, as, sadly, cemetery […]

“Eternity is really long, especially near the end”, according to Woody Allen. Of course eternity can’t be measured in years, but the only other scale we have is that of generations, counting from our own backwards or forwards, to the umpteenth. This too is an odd meditation: some people can barely remember their grandparents, and […]

“In the Book of Life, ages one to forty are the text, what follows is just the commentary”. Yup, I’ve always been partial to a good epigram, and have been collating a list lately (mostly attributed) with the notion of embedding them in my images. This extends the line I began in 2012 with my […]

Taranaki is famous for its well-watered pastures and of course for its dairy industry. This is FEBRUARY in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 Calendar, which is a selection from my book project of the same title. It features Al (my wife) walking towards a field of maize in south Taranaki, alongside what remains of the old […]

A roadside view from a calendar tour of the South Island, made over autumn with my wife Al. This early morning scene explained the chilly temperature in our camper van overnight. We then drove a little way up the summit road before the snow and slush made it clear that the rest of the way […]

The view west from the sharpest corner on the Lindis Pass-Tarras road, heading north from Wanaka. I had driven to Central Otago to meet up with a Wellington friend, thinking that Spring would follow me south. It didn’t, and a biting southerly blew for some days. When it relented some beautiful weather followed, but here […]

Back in the day I loved the surrealism of this film (Infra-red Ektachrome), and used it quite often when I had an extra Pentax on the go. This trip was my first proper visit to the far corner of Golden Bay, and I was very taken with the graceful landscapes we found there, despite having […]

What could be more New Zealand than a landscape with cattle? This combination was unexpected, though. All three beef beasts (Aberdeen Angus?) were recumbent as we came up the beach, enjoying the sea air no doubt. They only rose to their feet as we got closer. This section of the upper West Coast has been […]

Such contrast! A scene I could not resist, although I have no record of its exact location, nor the season – nor can I be definite that this was taken in 2002.  This lapse is instructive, because for so many years I kept a film diary, noting the place, people and date of every exposure […]

  Autumn frost, Waipiata, Central Otago. 23 May 1984. One frosty morning during a calendar tour we wandered the small railway settlement of Waipiata in search of material. This church set amongst lovely oaks caught my eye. The cycling sensation that is the Central Otago Rail Trail was still some years away then; I have […]

So this must be New Zealand – with rain-enhanced corrugated iron, two fat lambs and a cabbage tree to prove it. This apparently rustic scene presented itself as I waited for my womenfolk outside a chocolate boutique on Beach Rd. It features as August in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 Calendar. See my earlier posts for […]

The freedom of the sands! This image is for January in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 Calendar. Although taken in autumn, it is very evocative of summer on the granitic beaches of Abel Tasman National Park. The two islands in the background (at left is a headland) are within the Park boundary but Marahau, the main […]

An image from my Modest Epiphanies 2019 calendar, now at the printers.  The title is taken from my next book, still in preparation, and from which the calendar pictures are a sample. An epiphany is defined as a moment of revelation or profound realisation, but my photo project only aspires to a modest attainment of […]