This week’s photo challenges were to take an image straight out of the camera, with no post-camera editing, and to take a landscape. So obviously, I decided to take a landscape, and use it straight out of the camera. I took a lot of landscapes on our trip around the South Island in November, but the purpose of this challenge is to help me improve, so I thought I’d try something new.
The Husband and I have effectively hibernated since Christmas. The weather has been pretty miserable, with only one or two nice days that feel like summer, and we’ve just vegetated at home, not doing a lot. We’ve seen a movie, taken a trip on one nice day over the hill to have lunch at a vineyard and visit friends, and have visited other friends up the coast, though once again then the weather was miserable, and we didn’t even get to walk on the beach.
This morning, though, the sun was out and I suggested we take a drive together to make the most of it. Armed with my camera, we decided to head out southwest of the city, to an area we haven’t visited for several years, with a wild beach and farmland and windswept hills scattered with windmills, a result of – my electrical engineer husband informs me – the best conditions in the world for wind generation.
We stopped at the beach, but the wind was diabolical, the seaspray was misting up my lens (fortunately I have a protective filter on it), and I didn’t realise some of my shots had been taken when a lever had accidentally been moved to disturb the focus. We’ll go back one day when we don’t have gale force winds to take the walkway around the coast, and when it isn’t the height of mid-summer and mid-day, which always requires full protective SPF coverage. So I’ve eliminated my wild sea photos, even though one of them very conveniently has a seagull nicely placed in the foreground.
We drove up to the recreation area through the windmills, the first time I had ever been, though the Husband has been for work. The views up the coast were stunning, showing Mana Island and directly behind it Kapiti Island, neither of which we could see earlier in the week when we drove down the coast road past the islands as the mist was so low. I snapped many shots, trying out different things, though I was a little lazy and didn’t get around to changing my lenses. I also took some photos of the windmills, and these were okay too, but they didn’t grab me, and in the wind I couldn’t be bothered changing to my telephoto lens.
The landscape I chose could, it turns out, have been taken anywhere in New Zealand, and maybe that’s why I like it. We both loved the seagulls sitting out on the grass (the white spots – no, they’re not sheep!), grounded no doubt by the ferocity of the winds. I liked the macrocarpas, a feature of New Zealand farmland (and two of which we have here on our own section), and the native bush behind it, and the farm buildings and animals at the left, although the horse didn’t come out fully into the shot.
Then we drove down back into the city, finding a small café for lunch and a welcome coffee.
I love them. All of them.
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What a beautiful country you live in. The wind farm could have been taken here, where I live, but not the sea. Not the sea.
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Wow! Look at that blue! (I am watching 800 Words which takes place in NZ and I gasp at the beauty sometimes).
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I’m amazed you are watching that programme. I’ve seen some of it, but not the whole series. Series 2 has just started now.
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Yes, and loving the series. I watched it so much that I was able to sound (in my head) like a New Zealander. I get it on an online streaming station called Acorn. They are releasing Season 2 very slowly — on episode 8 now. What is New Zealand’s reaction? Did they make the locals too quirky?
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To be honest, I haven’t heard much reaction. The second season is currently on free-to-air TV here, so I think you’re right up to date. We’re pretty good on quirky characters, and as they made another series, it must be reasonably popular.
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Oh, gorgeous! So beautiful!
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