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.

Back from New Zealand

Two weeks in New Zealand just flew by. I was there to attend the Annual Convention of the Society of American Travel Writers (SATW) held this year in Wellington. Prior to the Convention, I was in Auckland for the Society’s Board meeting. I’ve served as the Chair of the Freelance Council for the last two years — my term ended on the final night of the Wellington Convention. I’ve enjoyed my time on the Board immensely but also look forward to taking some time off to return more focus to my own freelance business. I have lots of thoughts floating around for tweaking my business model and will now have the time to start implementing some of those ideas. 2012 promises to be an exciting year. More on that as it happens.

Since I didn’t have time to post while in New Zealand, I’ll share images now as I go through post-processing. First up is a shot I took on Day One in Auckland. I had just landed that morning and took advantage of some rare free time to walk the city and get my bearings. This is a kinetic sculpture on the waterfront with Auckland’s iconic Sky Tower in the background.

Packing light

As I prepare to leave for New Zealand, I’m mentally working my way through some new packing ideas. It’s a difficult balance to make sure you’re prepared for whatever might come your way on an international shoot and yet not overpack to the point that you are crippled by your own gear. In the past I’ve loved traveling with a backpack but then I began to realize that, while I had everything I needed in my pack, I didn’t often go to the trouble to take it off to get into my gear. When you have two cameras around your neck getting tangled in backpack straps, it’s not that convenient. A while ago I wrote about switching to a ThinkTank sling bag. It’s a little smaller than my backpack so it forces me to edit my gear a little right off the bat, but the real convenience comes from being able to swing it around and access it without taking it off. So far it has been working well.

On this trip, I’m adding another new element: a Scottevest. This thing is loaded with pockets of all sizes and most of them are secured with zippers. I’m hoping that it will work well for getting a lot of my little gadgets (ipod, headphones, paperback, phone, magazines, etc.) through the airports. It gets them out of my camera bag but doesn’t add another carryon. Then, once on location, I hope to often be able to leave the bag behind for a day and just load those same pockets up with small lenses, flash, filters, etc.

I’d better get back to some actual packing now but I’ll report back on how everything is working when I get some miles behind me. I hope to post from the road but, if that’s not possible, I’ll have plenty to share when I’m back.

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:

Chasm Falls, Colorado

Okay, this time my lack of posts is not (entirely) my fault. Last week was spent shooting in Colorado and on the first day of the trip my internet accounts were “compromised” (my hosting company’s term) and I lost all ability to send and receive emails or to log into any of my sites and blogs. Really convenient. At any rate — it’s fixed now and all is well.

The break from the heat was welcome. The day we left home, it hit 111 degrees. We, however, were quickly gaining altitude and getting out from under the “heat bubble” that’s been crippling the central US for the last month or more. It was cooler in Fort Collins and along the front range, but where we really felt the difference was in Rocky Mountain National Park. We drove the just-opened Fall River Road (it opened about a month late this year due to last year’s huge snowfalls and late melts) and back east on Trail Ridge Road — “the highest continuous motorway in the United States” according to the National Park site. At the highest point, the road reaches 12,183 feet and there was a definite chill in the air. I’m guessing mid-thirties with a blasting wind that had your fingers stinging about two minutes after leaving the comfort of the car.

This shot was taken much lower just a few miles into the Fall River Road at Chasm Falls. It’s a short but steep little hike down to the falls from the road but worth it. Also worth it were the tripod and neutral density filter that I’d brought along. With the filter and an aperture of f/22, I was able to slow the shutter to 1/5 of a second — just enough to get some softness in the rushing water.