Category Archives: architecture

Dunedin, New Zealand

Once my convention was over in Wellington, it was a short flight down to Dunedin on New Zealand’s South Island where my post-tour would begin. Still set at a whirlwind pace, at least the focus for me would now be photography — my convention responsibilities were now behind me. And at first glance, Dunedin was just the place to get started. The train station (above) was our first stop. Well, a farmers’ market that was being held at the station, actually. I always love shooting markets but I did find myself very distracted this time by the striking railroad station itself. I worked my way through the market stalls and spent a good amount of time exploring the architecture. Later in the afternoon, after a walking tour of downtown, the sky had cleared and I made a return trip for a few more shots like this one:

There are things I like about each — and actually think there might be some good black & whites in the cloudier set — but always like having different weather options in the files. You don’t always get that luxury when traveling through a region at high-speed like this but New Zealand seems to be much like Kansas in that, if you don’t like the weather, just wait a minute. It will change.

A few more from that downtown walk:


Much like Wellington, there were still plenty of hills and steep grades in Dunedin as seen by these rowhouses. Dunedin was settled by the Scottish as was evident by the statue of Robert Burns in the octagon, the city’s central “square”, and some of the grander architecture. According to Wikipedia, the name “Dunedin” came from the Scottish Gaelic name for Scotland’s capital, Edinburgh — “Dùn Èideann”. The gothic church above is the First Church of Otago which also seems to channel that Scottish influence.

Wellington, briefly

I was on a press trip in China a few years ago and heard our host describe our fast-paced schedule as “to appreciate the flower from a gallop”. Sometimes I feel that most of my life is lived that way. Always at a gallop. Certainly my few days in Wellington, New Zealand, fit that description. It was the core of the Society of American Travel Writers Annual Convention and I had several roles to play: I was finishing my term up as Chair of the Society’s Freelance Council, I was on the professional development committee helping to coordinate a few of the sessions on photography, I was helping with the judging and presentation of the winners for a “photo shootout” that took place just prior to the convention, and I was trying to glean some benefit for myself in the form of getting some stock images and making contacts with various writers and PR professionals. Sounds like a lot to do in four days, doesn’t it? I’m not complaining, however. I’ve gotten a lot out of the organization and I’m happy to contribute when I can as well. That said, I might have overdone it a bit this time. Live and learn.

The shot on the left sums up much of my time in Wellington — I saw glimpses of the city through windows as I passed from meeting room to meeting room. These coffee cups were set up for the attendees of my Freelance Council meeting one morning and I was somewhat relieved to see the rain outside as I felt that I maybe wasn’t missing quite so much that day afterall. On the right is a quick shot of Andrew McCarthy, actor-turned-travelwriter, who was our keynote speaker at the first day’s lunch. The shot at the top of this post was made at a reception the night before. I had taken a camera — just in case — and was relieved to see that one side of our venue opened to the waterfront when a beautiful sunset appeared. I missed out on some hors d’oeuvres that evening, but got a few nice shots.

Our final dinner and the presentation of the photo shootout winners was held at the Te Papa museum, above. An amazing place. Wellington is one of those great cities that deserves much more time than I was able to give it on this trip. I hope to return one day soon to explore further and to reconnect with my new Wellingtonian friends. But, for the next few posts we’ll be off to the South Island of New Zealand…

Shooting details with the Tamron 18-270

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I’ve neglected to mention that all of the photos from my last three blog posts — Glimpses of Auckland, Auckland Graffiti and Back from New Zealand — were taken with my new Tamron 18-270mm lens. As I had suspected, the wide range of focal lengths offered by that one small lens made it the perfect companion on those quick walks that I would take in the morning before breakfast or between sessions of my SATW Board meeting. I also took it to meals just in case something particularly photogenic was served, like these oysters on Waiheke Island:

When I travel for reasons other than purely photography, it’s always a trade off of when to take the gear and when to just focus on the meeting or whatever else might be the actual purpose of the trip. The thing is — you never know when an opening ceremony at a convention might include dancers in traditional dress or be held at a venue that has an amazing view of sunset over the bay. It’s not always practical to take a backpack full of gear and keep it shoved under the table while having dinner at a nice restaurant. For a while I made do with a pocket point-and-shoot for times like this but I was never entirely satisfied with my results. For this trip, I went with the Nikon D7000 and the Tamron 18-270mm lens. I even had video capabilities when needed.

The flowers at the top of this post and the detail shots below came from a couple of hours that I had to walk around the small village of Greytown, New Zealand. The weather was overcast and wide shots weren’t exactly tourism brochure worthy with those white skies, so I focused on details that kept the sky cropped out and took advantage of the nice, flat light. The Tamron came through for me again with its ability to focus close enough that there really wasn’t ever a shot I couldn’t get (I think Tamron specs out the minimum focus distance at just over 19 inches). The bokeh is nice as smooth as well.

Sure, there were other times on the trip when I had more time and freedom to photograph and I’d make use of nearly every lens and filter that I’d packed, but for those days that I had to tend to other business and still feel prepared for the occasional shot that presented itself, the D7000 and 18-270 combo never let me down.

Glimpses of Auckland, NZ

As I mentioned before, my real reason for being in Auckland, New Zealand, was to attend a Board meeting for the Society of American Travel Writers. Due to this, most of my time was unfortunately spent inside of hotel conference rooms but I took every opportunity to get out and explore when out of session. Each morning before breakfast I would grab a camera and take a walk — often through Albert Park which was just a few (steep!) blocks from the hotel. That’s where the photo above was taken, in part to prove that it was indeed Spring down under. That and I liked how the flower forms echoed the shape of Sky Tower.

For being such a long flight away — around 12 hours from LAX — New Zealand felt less foreign than many places I’ve been. The fact that they speak english helps of course, but the country was also settled at roughly the same time as the area where I have lived all my life. An 1860s building is old in New Zealand as it is here in Kansas. There aren’t a lot of ancient reminders around to let you know that you’re far from home.

That said, every now and then you’d run into something like this tree, the scale of which was altogether foreign in my terms (note the woman walking just behind the park bench for a size reference):

We’re looking for a shade tree for our side yard and what I wouldn’t give to have that baby! I don’t think I could wait the hundreds if not thousands of years it would take to reach that size, though.

I’ll end with a few more architectural shots from my morning walks and the last from the window of my room at the Sky City Grand Hotel that was located right at the base of the Sky Tower. With a landmark like that, it was no problem finding my way home from those walks.


Auckland graffiti

One of my first impressions of Auckland, NZ was how clean it was and how little graffiti I saw. Every now and then I’d spot an odd tag or two but, for the most part, graffiti seemed to take the form of larger, more organized murals. A little research since I’ve been home reveals that the city had undertaken a large-scale cleanup prior to the Rugby World Cup. Most graffiti was painted over but murals that had the permission of the property owners were spared, for the most part.

To some degree, the authorities seem to even sponsor graffiti as seen in this campaign for recruiting police officers (more here):

My favorite piece of art was one that I found in St Kevins’ Arcade — a building on the city’s funky K Road that has a walkway through to Myers Park. Here’s one small section of it:

According to Long White Cloud, this piece is the work of Cut Collective and is a recent addition to the street art scene in Auckland.

Stained glass dome

In my last post you saw the current Louisiana State Capitol Building but — just a few blocks away — Louisiana’s Old State Capitol still stands and it is now operated as a museum. Built between 1847 and 1852, the castle-like building was gutted by an accidental fire in 1862. Louisiana had seceded the previous year and the Union was using the building as a prison and garrison at the time of the blaze. The interior was completely rebuilt in 1882 with the addition of this central staircase and stained glass dome. The building remained Louisiana’s Capitol until the new one was built in the 1930s. If you want to know more about its history, pay a visit and be sure to see the “Ghost of the Castle” immersive theater presentation. It’s incredibly well done and I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.

Tamron 18-270mm lens

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I recently had an opportunity to try out the Tamron 18-270mm zoom lens on a shoot in Louisiana (The full name of this lens is the Tamron 18-270mm f/3.5-6.3 Di II VC PZD). The shot above is of downtown Baton Rouge, taken from the 27th floor observation deck of the State Capitol Building. That’s the wide end of the lens — 18mm. Now check this out:

That’s the Huey Long statue on the Capitol grounds shot from the same spot with the lens zoomed all the way to 270mm. These were taken my Nikon D7000 so, given the cropped sensor, the zoom range would be the equivalent of 27mm to a little over 400mm on a full-frame DSLR (Tamron Di II lenses are not built for full-frame sensors, however. Their Di lenses are the full-frame models). That’s pretty significant coverage. And it’s small — less than a pound and it takes 62mm filters.

To a travel photographer, the idea of having one lens that does everything while being lightweight and compact… well… that’s pretty appealing. Of course, you can’t have it all. No one lens can do everything. But this one does a lot.

There are shooting situations that require that you “go light” and not take all your gear. An example might be a day out in a kayak. You don’t have space to take a lot with you and it might be inconvenient — if not dangerous — to try and change lenses while out on the water. That’s where I see a lens like this really shining. It would get you through almost any situation you might encounter from wide shots of your companion kayakers that show the surrounding scenery, to tight telephoto shots of wildlife that might appear with little warning.

To achieve a zoom range like this and to keep the lens light, you need to give up some speed and the Tamron 18-270 is an f/3.5-6.3. Almost everything I carry is f/2.8 or faster so this might seem slow — especially if you’re hand-holding it and shooting telephoto — but the 18-270 does have very capable stabilization and — let’s face it — with today’s DSLRs it’s no longer such a big deal to crank up the ISO a little.

As another example of the Tamron’s range and the creative potential that it brings: here are two shots from the reverse view of those at the top of this post. These are taken from behind the Huey Long statue, looking back up at the Louisiana State Capitol Building (Long was instrumental in its construction, by the way, and was assassinated inside it). I took a few steps in between these two images but they are shot from more or less the same position. The shot on the left at 18mm (27mm equivalent) and the one on the right at 270mm (400+).

I shot a lot with this lens while on my Louisiana road trip and will share more images later. The Tamron 18-270 impressed me enough that it’s earned a place in my bag when I go to New Zealand next month. Then we’ll really see what she can do.

Hittin’ the Trail

Here’s a shot from last summer’s trip to St. Joseph, Missouri, that I’ve been intending to post for weeks and it never seemed to happen. It’s the old sign for the Trail Theater. I love old signage and I love typography so I’m always drawn to things like this. Somehow it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting if it were all shiny and new. I think the patina of time is the real subject of these shots. Between this and my recent Bowling Alley post, I think you can see a trend developing.

It’s been a busy few months around here. Unfortunately, much of the assignment work that I’ve been doing has to stay under wraps until the stories run. I have so much that I’d like to post, but it will have to wait a little while. The title of this post is timely, though, as I’m beginning to prepare for my next international trip to New Zealand. Between now and departure day, I’ll try and get caught up with some more images from the last couple of months and keep you all posted on some changes to my gear for this trip. No huge changes, but some little tweaks that I’m hoping will make big differences.

Architecture

On the way home from an assignment this weekend, I found myself passing through Kansas City just as the light was getting nice. There’s been a lot going on in KC the last few years and I’ve been needing to update my stock images. This seemed like a good time to make a dent in that task.

Probably the most noticeable addition to the Kansas City skyline in recent years is the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. It’s a beautiful structure and I’m sure it’s one I’m going to return to time and time again to photograph. There is so much to work with — the shapes, the materials — absolute eye-candy. So, here is one of my first attempts. I’ll be interested to see what other photographers’ see as they also approach this building over the coming months and years. I think we’ll be seeing a lot of it and some really creative shots.

Here are a couple more straightforward shots to give you some idea of the scale of this thing: