South Auckland | Christopher John Photography

June 16, 2015

Up in the air!

Rather a lovely day today here in Godzone and a chance to get out with the drone. It is becoming increasingly apparent that a common language and a predefined plan are essential to get reasonable footage when shooting video. Filling out the storyboards and planning the shots beforehand are not really optional.

I popped out to Barry Curtis Park first thing with my daughter just to play with the controls and get familiar with the responsiveness of the craft. It was a bit windy which didn’t help, but we had a heap of fun all the same. Later in the day a few shots up at Nathan Homestead with my son … but again pretty windy so we didn’t really get much time in the air. Just long enough to get a shot of the homestead. Looking at some footage of a tree we realised just how windy it was that little bit higher off the ground. Nevertheless the gimbal provided pretty good stable images which was impressive. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day.

January 1, 2014

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year! Hard to believe, but 2014 is here already. I’d decided to get up early and head out towards Maraetai in the hope of capturing a pleasant first sunrise of the year. The alarm was set at a ridiculously early hour and a somewhat bleary eyed journey in the dark ensued as we headed to the beach. Part way there it suddenly dawned on me that we hadn’t checked the tide times and the tide could be well out! This wouldn’t be good and would spoil the shot across the sea look we were hoping for. Sunrise was scheduled for 6:05 am, but we thought we’d get there in plenty of time. Quite a few other folks arrived too and after a few Happy New Year pleasantries we all settled down to watch and capture the year’s first sunrise. Just in case you missed the sunrise I’ve attached a few images for you below.

All the very best for a safe and happy 2014.

November 25, 2013

White Ribbon Campaign in Manukau Square

District Commander, Superintendent John Tims

Today is not only the 25th November, it’s also a very important day for women in our community. It’s white Ribbon Day which is actually a day started by men to bring attention to the issue of violence against women in an effort to end it. Sadly too many women in New Zealand still experience violence in their lives, but it’s not just a problem for them, it’s a problem for their family and friends and a much broader societal problem. Click here to find out more about the White Ribbon Campaign in New Zealand and take the pledge.

Below are a few photos from today’s event in Manukau.

November 24, 2013November 25, 2013

White Ribbon Campaign in Manukau, New Zealand

The White Ribbon Campaign in New Zealand is a meld of the White Ribbon Day movement in Canada and the United Nations international day for Elimination of Violence Against Women, which is celebrated on 25 November each year. The campaign which now takes place during the whole month of November is driven by a campaign team and community groups in towns and cities throughout New Zealand. White Ribbon events and activities are increasingly supported by businesses, cultural groups, sporting teams, local government, and a wide range of community and government agencies.

Marica Picot, Len Brown and Shan Inglis at Manukau’s Hayman Park.

There were speeches from a number of people with sickening facts and figures being quoted. I hadn’t realised that one in three women experience violence from a partner in their lifetime, while on average, fourteen women are killed each year by a member of their own family.

White Ribbon is an international movement that condemns men’s violence towards women. Each November, White Ribbon runs a month-long campaign that culminates on 25 November, White Ribbon Day. This year, how about you take the pledge and help change attitudes and behaviour towards abuse of women.

So, the event was great. Great food, music and dance. Plenty of fun things for the kids too with bouncy castles, face painting and opportunities to draw and colour in flags. Let’s just hope the Mums and Dads got the message as well as had a great day out.

October 21, 2013October 21, 2013

Time for tablets

I must admit that when shooting a number of the houses in my local area I often find it challenging to see what the camera sees in small rooms. Often the camera is on a tripod in the corner of a room with no room for me to get behind and look through the viewfinder or see the display. The problem of composing the shot gets worse when you put the camera a few metres up a pole! One idea was to have an external monitor so I could see what was going on. Using a USB connection along with Helicon Remote allows me to view the scene and focus the camera whilst looking at my tablet. So much easier in those awkward places! I can’t zoom, but I can compose, focus and take a bracketed set of shots.

I didn’t want a BIG tablet. I have enough to carry about and as I’ve already mentioned I can end up in small places! I opted for the little Nexus 7 as it has quite a nice screen, is small and quite lightweight. As it happens I can use it for Skype and the rear facing camera isn’t too bad as you can see from the two shots in this post. It’s 5MP and I find the handling of the device for photographs more awkward than using my dSLRs. As such, the next set of photos posted here will almost certainly not be from the Nexus!

The first shot in the post is of the stray cat that has returned to the compost heap to deposit yet another litter of kittens. I wish we could catch this cat or compost heap kittens is going to be an annual event! The second image in the post is of some aquilegia I planted at the bottom of may garden last year.

June 27, 2013June 28, 2013

Commodore VF Launch

What a gorgeous car! Such a privilege to be present at the launch of such a special Commodore. This car has so many tricks up its sleeve to keep you safe and refinement usually reserved for the top of the line European marques. Great event hosted by Davie Motors in Manukau who will, judging by customer feedback last night, be selling quite a few of these lovely vehicles!

Want to find out more? Maybe contact Davie Motors’ website or check them out on Facebook.

June 26, 2013June 28, 2013

Four Go Flatting

What a wonderful afternoon at the Vodafone Events Centre on Great South Road at the launch of the Four Go Flatting Book and DVD launch. The book is an invaluable resource for people looking into Individualised Funding. Individualised Funding is one of the most significant developments in recent years in relation to the rights of New Zealanders living with disabilities. It enables disabled people and their whanau to have real control over the daily supports and long term goals for their lives. It puts them in the centre of their own development, allowing them and theior whanau to make their own life choices.

For further information … or to request your own copy of the book and DVD … contact the Parent and Family Resource Centre. You might also like to check out a small gallery images from the event on the TeamSouth Website.

June 13, 2013

Ihumatao Stonefields

Back to landscape images. I’ve been out and about most of today, starting quite early with my usual Thursday morning BNI meeting in Manukau, and there seems to have been little time to capture any new scenes. Keen to get more images of South Auckland into my Landscapes galleries on here I’ve started a new section called Ihumatao Stonefields. Maori lived and worked the land at the Stonefields for centuries besides collecting shellfish and fish from the nearby Manukau Harbour. Ihumatao Stonefields is a very special and sacred place and offers some lovely walks and views. European settlers also worked the land here for over 100 years. Believe it or not, the reserve is also home to a rare and highly endangered plant called mawhai or the native cucumber, which has not been recorded growing elsewhere on the New Zealand mainland since 1866.

The shot in this post was taken with my D300 and the Nikkor 24-70mm lens. Often, under conditions where there’s such a range of light levels, I’d take several shots at different exposures and blend them together using either Photomatix Pro or HDR Efex Pro. However, this image is a single shot processed in Nik’s Color Efex Pro. I’m becoming increasingly impressed with Color Efex Pro. If you work with digital images consider downloading the free trial of the various Nik products as you may find they’re ideal tools for your workflow.

June 11, 2013

To the Gardens …

A quick trip to the Botanic Gardens earlier today as I really wanted some photographs of the Visitor Centre to add to my Manurewa Photo Gallery. After passing through the visitor centre there’s a wonderful show of Californian Poppies (you can see just one of them – with a bee – in the image above). I really need to go back again and take some photographs as the sun is going down … until then though, perhaps check out the Manurewa Photo Gallery for the shots I took today and let me know what you think. Now I’d better get back to adding more images to my Musician and Landscape Galleries! It seems to be taking me forever!

June 10, 2013

Still busy!

Duder's Regional Park — Looking out to sea at Duder’s Regional Park

It seems to be taking be AGES to upload images into galleries! I decided I should organise the shots into different areas as it’d then be easier for me to add images to galleries in the future, but right now it seems to be taking me forever! I had a similar idea about the bands and musicians. I thought I could create separate albums for each artist as this might make the viewers life a little easier. Perhaps, if you get a chance, take a look and let me know what you think. I must admit to being a bit of a novice at this type of thing, so any hints, tips or helpful advice would be very gratefully received.

Right, back to Bridge and sorting through more photos for the on-line Landscape galleries!