Author Archives: toscanakiwi

An evening in Sicily

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Deck chair line up in SicilySo let me be clear, this post is a bit obscure – unless you were there. The photo is of a swimming pool in Sicily. We stayed in a lovely villa in Syracuse – that included this pool – with our friends Gill and Andre and the family in 2014. We spent a great week in and around the pool.

It was the centre of daily activity, but after the sun had dropped below the horizon and everyone headed off to dinner it took on that wonderful Italian evening glow. A mix of pale sky blues, harsh sunset yellows and every shade of pink imaginable. All contrasting with the bright blue of the somewhat ordered loungers.

Take a bow Syracuse, you earned it.

The summer of 2016

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Sunset at our place 2This year, summer is the kind we always dream about. Hot sunny days and warm calm evenings that seem to stretch on forever – with the weather forecaster’s prediction of impending wind and rain being proved wrong time and again.

Tonight, as the sun dropped below the horizon, we were on our front verandah enjoying the view. The girls were waiting patiently to terrorise anyone who dared to pass the gate. What a great evening.

Poppie through a window

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Pop in the windowIn summer we often spend evenings sitting in the backyard catching the last of the sun – much to the apparent displeasure of Poppie the dog who sits inside, on the window seat, eyeballing us through the Lavender.

We’re not sure why she does this. I suspect she’s wondering why we are just sitting around enjoying ourselves – when we should be getting her dinner. Just a thought.

 

Night and day

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Over the last few days I’ve spent a bit of time playing around with Photoshop turning day shots to night shots. It’s one of those things that sounds hard but is relatively simple.

The key is to making things look realistic is to work out where the night light is coming from – street lights or the moon or an open window – and to work from that.

See what you think.

 

 

A comparison that surprised me

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Two camerasMy first ever digital camera was a Canon Digital IXUS V. It boasted a 2.1 megapixel sensor, an optical view finder and a LCD screen on the back that was about the size of a postage stamp. Overall it was about as big as a packet of cigarettes and built like a brick.

I purchased it over 10 years ago and it has sat in a draw, unused, for the last few years because the battery has refused to charge. I ran across it a few weeks ago and decided to see if I could track down a new battery to bring it back to life. Surprisingly I managed to find a new battery  – thank you dc-battery.co.nz – and the camera came alive.

A comparison seemed to be in order – my rejuvenated Canon versus the Leica D-Lux 6 purchased in Hong Kong last year.

This is in no way a scientific comparison, just me playing around one afternoon at my desk. I was expecting the Leica to blitz the Canon – which it did – but in good light the antique Canon held up reasonably well – much better than I expected.

Flowers on our bench

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FlowersIt’s the height of summer in Wellington and our garden is full to bursting with flowers. Which explains why some have made their way into a vase on our bench. I think the florist in the family has done a great job arranging them – so I took a photo.

My favourite car shot – at the moment

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Peeping PorschesThis shot was taken last year but I’ve only just got around to cleaning it up – and I really like it.

I’ve removed a few distractions – like power poles and the inevitable overhead wires – and played with the colour but that’s about all.

Photographers talk about the “magic hour” just after dusk – and this shot is a good example.

I’ve included the original shot as a point of reference.

Our back yard

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Back yard 2 - Jan 2016The holiday break has seen an addition to our back yard in the form of an outdoor couch. It wasn’t exactly what we went looking for but we think it’s a nice addition. It catches the last of the sun and is a great place to relax on a warm summer evening.

 

Doggie antics

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Bella on the couchA short movie showing Bella on the couch in the study yesterday afternoon. After filming she was off to make mischief elsewhere – pretty much what you would expect from a 3 year old.

Of dogs and moon rises

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Presenting two photos that you can only take when you’ve got the time. And that’s the great thing about holidays, you have the time.

The dog shot involved two tired girls and Jean acting as a wrangler behind me. It took about 30 shots to get the one I was looking for with Poppie staring down the lens and Bella on guard.

The moon rising over Nelson shot took time because I had no tripod and the shutter speed had to be quick enough to ensure a sharp shot but still have a reasonable depth of field. In the end I pushed the ISO to 800 and managed to hand-hold the camera steady for 1/30th of a second exposure. Then it was into Photoshop for some cropping, colour balancing and exposure work.

It’s great to have time for all this faffing about.

Merry Christmas from Nelson

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Poppie and Bella relaxingTeam Mowday is in Nelson enjoying some family hospitality. So far that’s meant a cracking Christmas dinner and a day spent recovering – which involved lots of snoozing.

As you can see, everyone is taking the chance to recharge their batteries.

It’s beginning to look a bit like Christmas – at our place

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Christmas at KainuiThe tree is up at our place and, for the first time, the front balcony is festooned with sparkling lights. It was a little concerning when Jean, standing and admiring her work, mentioned in passing “we really need to do the upstairs balcony as well, and the gutters”.

Who knows where this will end?

Farewell to a legend

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Jonah LomuIt was the last thing anyone expected. The passing of a legend, the passing of Jonah. I vividly recall that game in South Africa in 1995 when he steamrolled the English. Four tries and the, now legendary, flattening of Mike Catt.

On top of his rugby prowess, in the last few years he struck me as a thoroughly good guy, father, husband and kiwi.

Jonah, you will be missed.

It’s been a while since my last post …

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All Blacks

I’ve just realised it’s been around 6 weeks since my last post. Clearly life and work have got in the way of blogging. That and the Rugby World Cup and all the stress and tension that generated. As far as I can work out almost every kiwi was up at 5am on finals day to watch the match. At half time with the All Blacks up by 20 odd points there was humour and a feeling of “job done”, but 20 minutes later when the gap was 4 points things got serious. Ultimately the ABs despatched those we love to beat –  the Australians – and the celebrations began.

And the champagne flowed. It was quite odd being drunk at 8am on a Sunday but I suspect we weren’t the only New Zealand household in that state.