Green Apples

Rain

We had a cool temperature and gentle rain yesterday.

Alien Beetle!?

I actually love their sign and store front.  (Jewel Beetle)

Petrol Price

I'm not sure this was scheduled before the EQ or not, but the petrol price finally brake the $2 line yesterday.

Blue Sky & Golden Kiwi

Simple as that!

Theatre Royal

I think I did not uploaded the photo after they fully restored the theatre including this veranda.

Many of you have heard about the earthquake in Christchurch yesterday. Though the news coverage said it was felt from Invercargill at the bottom of the South Island to Hamilton halfway up the North Island, strangely neither of us felt anything in Nelson.  Life is as usual for us, thank you for asking, though it feels almost wrong to be going about our normal life.

This one, unlike the September 4 quake or the big Boxing Day shock, has been devastating in the number of hurt and deceased people.  Please keep New Zealand's Cantabrians and their families and friends in your thoughts.

Summer in Nelson

Step Away from the Screen

It's not your eyes, nor your screen.  It's my pic that's a little tentative on the focus.

Ever since we went to Brian Brake's Exhibition in Wellington in January, I've been wanting to get back to some film photography, especially because I have a lovely little macro lens.  So I shot a roll of anything I fancied in my stash room, and it was a.... hilarious experience. I had forgotten that:

1) Unless I have a zoom attached, which I didn't, the lens stays at one length, 50mm;
2) I have to wind after every shot;
3) I have to check the meter before every shot and change the shutter speed or the aperture if need be;
4) If I have the object in focus but have to do 2) and/or 3), I need to check the focus again.
5) That a roll of 24 shots is going to give me, at best, around 26 shots, not the gazillion like my digital.

The stash room was dark, my film was only ASA200, (but I grew up with ASA100, so I thought it was sufficient,) the macro lens is not a particularly fast (aperture) lens, and I couldn't hold the camera as steadily nor stand as still as I used to. The only thing that came back right away was my strange way of fine-tuning the focus with both my forefingers while holding the camera steadily.

Now if I remember what I learned when I was 13, the pink overtone is due to underexposure, but I didn't want to open the aperture any more, and I was shooting at 1/4 and 1/8 secs.  Next time, ASA400.  Or outside.

This is Where it Started

In New Zealand, there is a government insurance scheme called ACC, Accident Compensation Corporation. In short, it provides free/inexpensive medical coverage if you are in an accident.  People have all kinds of opinions about its policies, but in all, it's a great scheme allowing people who have been hurt to fill in a simple (for what it does, it's really simple) form and get medical treatment immediately.  I understand it was established to prevent needless and slow law suits, and supposedly incidents covered by ACC cannot be brought to court as well; New Zealand didn't use to be a litigious society, but that seems to be changing.

Our local MP (senator/congressman) is currently also the ACC minister, and he realized ACC was paying an overly large rent to their new premise into which the offices moved a couple of years ago.  This led to an inquiry that resulted in a staff being caught accepting bribe, including a trip to the Singapore Grand Pris.

I remember taking a picture of this building when the ACC sign went up, being astonished because ACC was not doing well financially and daily we heard about what additional items were being cut from its policies, and the government overall had already started cutting back on its own spending.  Well, there you go.

Our Favorite local bookshop Page and Blackmore asked fans on Facebook what our Top Ten books are; the exact question included the phrase "a desert island".  I jot down mine and submitted it.  To me it was a no brainer, because some of these are books I've been lugging around every time I moved since the 70's, and some I've recommended to so many friends.

1. Snobbery
2. Walden and Other Writings
3. The Best of Saki
4. The Life and Death of St Kilda
5. The Triumph of the Airheads and the Retreat from Commonsense
6. The Artist’s Way
7. Native Wit
8. Is Sex Necessary? Or Why You Feel The Way You Do
9. Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up
10. Little Women

"Snobbery", I must admit, is a guilty pleasure and what a gem it is. "Native Wit" is the best New Zealand non-fiction I've red to date. The only omission from Top Ten was Strunk and White's "The Elements of Style" (Second Edition, the blue one); I thought if I were alone in a desert island, it wouldn't matter if I shouted out my observations/opinions unstylishly, yes?

Sure I have a few more I could have included, but for that day at that time, these were the top books.

Group Performance

See this one too...

Blue Sky

With a bit of clouds....

Sunset Last Night

Kayak

An apple a day...

Wakatu Hotel

No crop version but just my predefined process has been applied.  I actually like this one better than cropped but I was committed to 8x10 format for my other project running on here.
This is a pub, family restraint and accommodation in very central of Nelson. Good people. 

Grass

It could be little cooler, if I lie down here for while?

Around the Airport

This was near the end of the portion that sticks out like a finger on the lower right of the airport walk.

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We weren't sure where exactly the walk ended, but we walked until we saw water. Warning: the last 5-10 minutes you could surrounded by sandflies.

Kicking...

I kicked myself while I took this picture Saturday morning and I'm still kicking myself now because if I weren't so busy looking at the plane but got the camera out sooner, I could have gotten a shot of the nose coming right at me less than a minute earlier.

So I present you this uncropped version.  The plane landed from the right, taxied to the end of the runway on the left, and turned towards me before turning right to go to the terminal.

Maybe next time.

Three Trees

In the middle of walkway, but feels like middle of nowhere.

Low Cloud

Cabbage Tree

At near the airport walkway.

New Zealand Highway Summer Traffic

Rainbow

It is the morning of Nelson Anniversary day (31/Jan)

Bird Waching

It is great for bird watching as well.,

Beach

This is where we opened our lunch box.

Walking

Marahau.
The start of the Abel Tasman National Park track.  It's great for small picnic with packed lunch box and good company.

Theme Day: Fountains

This is actuality fount an, currently no water is out from his mouth.  It is also the base of street lamp as a centre piece of Trafalgar SQ.  (See here.)
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