Auckland Art Gallery

Auckland Art Gallery - ever one of my favourite places for so many reasons

This is pretty interesting (below) 

Amazing detail 

Auckland Harbour Bridge

There has been a project running to light up the Auckland Harbour Bridge (Vector) in a more sustainable way than similar projects overseas.  This is via solar energy, batteries etc - although since the majority of our power is generated sustainably (- hydro, wind and geothermal) this feels more a PR exercise than something innovative and meaningful to the majority of Kiwis.

There is a (very) short "show" at 9pm each night which can be seen from vantage points around the city. The show includes a number of "chasing light" (moving) sequences which I wasn't able to photograph meaningfully.

The photos below were taken "hand held" from the Sky Tower and although the tower is an excellent view point it is less than ideal for photographs as it is "through glass". There are ways to mitigate this obstacle but from what I saw in the Tower there will be a lot of people getting home very disappointed with their pictures due to the internal reflections.

At twilight - a purple glow (above)

At the end of the "show" the bridge lighting rests in this red (below) - maybe not very day but at present it's the Chinese New Years so that may account for the colour.

 

Chinese New Year

It's all over bar the shouting and spending the contents of your "Red Envelope", and what better place than the Sky Tower Casino ......

Three faces of the Auckland CBD

Lovely public space near the Auckland Art Gallery - Lorne Street

 Vulcan Lane running between Queen Street and O'Connell Street - lots of interesting pubs and eating places 

........and this Fort Street in the prime tourist area a land value of $5mil and annual property taxes of $21,500

Obliterated - Exhibiting - Auckland Art Gallery

There is currently an exhibition at the Auckland Art Gallery by Yaoi Kusama titled "The Obliteration room" Auckland Gallery - well worth a look but don't stay in too long you might get very disoriented!

Lots to see in the rest of the gallery and there is a cafe overlooking Kitchener Street if you need time to reconnect with reality.

Kodak Vest Pocket Camera

The Kodak Vest Pocket Autographic ( Historic camera ) was my Dads first camera acquired second hand just before WW2. He took it with him to Canada (pilot training) and then to the UK.

I'm not sure which year Dads was manufactured but it's somewhere between 1915 and 1926 - it has a serial number 845021.

Not especially large and easily fitting in ones pocket.

Everything is still in working order.

Rear "window" opened to show where the user could write on the film with the metal "pen" this is still attached in its holder. 

A couple of examples of photo's taken with this camera. They are contact prints, that is the same size as the negative. With only two shutter speeds available 1/25th and 1/50th there wasn't a hope of halting the motion of all individuals in the frame (above).

Muriwai - very gnarly after the storm