The Changing Seasons: January 2019

Stihl more to do. Image: Su Leslie 2019

There are worse metaphors for my month than the Big T’s chainsaw.

There have been days when I’ve effortlessly cut through “the big stuff”, and others when it’s felt like my plans and good intentions have been chopped off at the knees.

But overall, we managed to tackle some jobs that have been over-long in the “too hard” basket, and reward ourselves with a few escapes from our normal landscape.

I’ve already posted shots from most of these trips, (very poor planning) so here are a some from a long-delayed visit to The Lighthouse (see below), an exploration of the walk and cycleway under Mangere Bridge (we weren’t even sure it existed), a visit to the beautiful Northland beach at Whananaki where T and I once camped, and a few days in Rotorua.

A highlight of that trip was the Redwoods Tree Walk; 28 connected suspension bridges, up to 20 metres off the ground in the midst of the redwood forest. I hate heights — but it was fabulous. It is open until 11pm, and the forest is lit up at night, but there were massive queues the evening we considered it, while we had the daytime walk almost to ourselves.

The Lighthouse, and The Cloud; downtown Auckland. Image: Su Leslie 2019

The Lighthouse, public sculpture on Queens Wharf, Auckland. Artist: Michael Parakowhai. Image: Su Leslie 2019

The Lighthouse, a sculpture by Michael Parakowhai. Image: Su Leslie 2019

The chainsaw maestro. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Image; Su Leslie 2019

Walkway, Mangere Bridge, Auckland. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Walkway, Mangere Bridge, Auckland. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Manukau Harbour, from the walkway on Mangere Bridge, Auckland. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Redwoods Tree Walk, Rotorua — with the Big T. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Redwoods Tree Walk, Rotorua. Image; Su Leslie 2019

Redwoods Tree Walk, Rotorua. Image; Su Leslie 2019

Redwoods Tree Walk, Rotorua. Image; Su Leslie 2019

Redwoods Tree Walk, Rotorua. Image; Su Leslie 2019

Whananaki footbridge. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Whananaki Beach, Northland. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Before …. Image: Su Leslie 2019

Experimenting with a new tote design. Holds two bottles of wine (just not for long). Image: Su Leslie 2019

… and after. Image: Su Leslie 2019

It hasn’t felt like a particularly creative month. I messed around with a design for a tote to hold a couple of bottles of wine, on the basis that this (suitably filled) would make a good gift. The design is good, but I’m struggling with execution.

In the kitchen, my sourdough obsession has produced a few attempts at pizza / pizza bread. I’m definitely getting there, and T is happy for me to keep experimenting!!

About The Changing Seasons

The Changing Seasons is a monthly challenge where bloggers around the world share what’s been happening in their month.

If you would like to join in, here are the guidelines:

The Changing Seasons Version One (photographic):

• Each month, post 5-20 photos in a gallery that you feel represent your month
  
• Don’t use photos from your archive. Only new shots.
• Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so that others can find them

The Changing Seasons Version Two (you choose the format):

• Each month, post a photo, recipe, painting, drawing, video, whatever that you feel says something about your month
• Don’t use archive stuff. Only new material!
• Tag your posts with #MonthlyPhotoChallenge and #TheChangingSeasons so others can find them.

If you do a ping-back to this post, I can update it with links to all of yours.

Update

Ladyleemanila

Tracy at Reflections of an Untidy Mind

Marilyn at Serendipity — Seeking Intelligent Life on Earth

Tish at Writer on the Edge

The Covert Novelist

Joanne at My Life Lived Full

Deb at The Widow Badass

Ju-Lyn at All Things Bright and Beautiful

Jude at Living on the Edge

Little Pieces of Me

Pauline at Living in Paradise

Ruth at Ruth’s Arc

Sarah at Art Expedition

Yvette at Priorhouse blog

 

 

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The Lighthouse is a work of public art by NZ sculptor Michael Parakowhai. It’s sited at the very end of Queen’s Wharf in the CBD and from the outside, is a 1:1 scale replica of a New Zealand “state house” of the 1950s. The interior is completely open and contains clustered neon lights and a large scale statue of Captain Cook (there is an identical sculpture in the New South Wales Art Gallery).

It’s an interesting work — with the interior defying expectations. I didn’t manage to capture any particularly good interior shots, but there is one in this article. And uou can read more about it here.

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2018 through my lens

In the final Lens-Artists photo challenge for 2018, Ann-Christine asks us to review our photos of the past year and share some favourites.

There are threads that run through all my photography: preferred subjects, lenses, and styles of composition. Food, flowers, beaches and art are always well-represented in the archive.

The first plums harvested from our tree. Image: Su Leslie 2018

My enjoyment of food photography is a natural extension of my passion for food. What I like best about the shot above is that it was my first (and only) “take.” I don’t have a dedicated studio, and have to construct a set-up for every shoot. Because I’ve done the close-up-on-black-background style of photography before, I was able to set this up really quickly and got the shot I wanted first time.

What’s not to love about dramatic landscapes?

Manukau Heads, from Huia. Auckland, New Zealand. Su Leslie 2018

Old garage, Whangaehu, Whanganui. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Morning walk, Greenhithe. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Or beautiful flowers?

Fun with flowers. Image: Su Leslie

I like the shots below because they not only remind me of a great visit to Sydney to indulge in my passion for art, but about being in the right place at the right time.

Wei Wang, Walking. Sculpture by the Sea, 2018. Image: Su Leslie, 2018

Viktor Freso, Niemand. Sculpture by the Sea, 2018. Image: Su Leslie 2018

This year, my interest in art has taken a new direction with an on-going commission to photograph the life of a friend’s art studio. Because it’s both a working and teaching space, I have suddenly found myself learning to take portraits — not only of a dear friend but also the many students she teaches, and a couple of events the studio has hosted.

Young talent. My young friend Aiko performing at her mother’s book launch. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Su Leslie 2018

I’ve chosen the portraits above, not because I think they are necessarily great photos, but because they represent moments in women’s lives that I was privileged to be able to share.

My favourite photograph of 2018 is another portrait.

 

The Big T, with whom I’ve shared my life for 32 years, doesn’t generally like being photographed, so allowing me to point my camera at him is an act of generosity, if not love. For which I am really grateful.

The Big T. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Wishing you all a very happy and creative year ahead.

Steampunk airship in garden — why not?

Floating steampunk airship, part of the Concept Garden at Hamilton Gardens, Hamilton, NZ. Image: Su Leslie

Posted to Six Word Saturday

“The Garbo of the Skies”

Statue commemorating Jean Batten, New-Zealand born aviator of the 1930s. Image: Su Leslie 2018

It’s almost a year since I was inspired by Anabel at Glasgow Gallivanter (in Hidden Histories, a guest post at Retirement Reflections) to search out public commemorations of women’s achievements in my home city of Auckland.

My initial post focused on the ways Women’s Suffrage has been remembered in public art around the city, and since then I’ve only managed a (quite accidental) post about the botanist Lucy Moore who has a park and stormwater pond named after her in Warkworth, north of Auckland.

So today I bring you aviator Jean Batten (1909-1982) who, during the 1930s made a series of record-breaking solo flights, including a return flight from England to Australia (1934), the first flight by a woman across the South Atlantic (1935), and ever direct flight from England to New Zealand in October (1936). She made her last long-distance flight in 1937, returning to England from Australia.

She retired from flying, aged only 28 and spent the rest of her life in relative obscurity, living and traveling, first of all with her mother, then alone after the latter’s death in 1966.

The last anyone heard from Jean was in November 1982, when she wrote to her publisher in London, letting him know her new address in Majorca.

It took until September 1987 for researchers to learn that she had died alone in a hotel within weeks of arriving in Majorca, and had been buried in a mass pauper grave. She had suffered a dog bite, and refusing treatment, died of a pulmonary abscess at the age of 73.

Detail, statue of Jean Batten, aviator, located outside the International Terminal, Auckland Airport. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Jean Batten left New Zealand in 1929, and only returned as an occasional visitor. In recordings I’ve heard of her speeches and interviews, she sounds terribly British, and I’m not sure how much her Kiwi origins were public knowledge.

But her achievements, in an overwhelmingly male field of endeavour, were considerable and she deserves to be recognised and celebrated.

The International Terminal at Auckland Airport (where the statue above is located) is named after her, as are streets in in Auckland, Christchurch, Mount Maunganui, Wellington and Rotorua. The Jean Batten Building (in Jean Batten Place, Auckland) no longer exists, but the facade has been incorporated into the high-rise constructed on its site. She has had a primary school named after her, and in her hometown of Rotorua, another statue is sited at the airport.

The title of this post is taken from the 1988 television documentary titled Jean Batten: the Garbo of the Skies, directed by Ian Mackersey, who in 1991 published a biography with the same name. It was the research team working on Mackersey’s documentary that uncovered the mystery of Jean Batten’s death.

You can also find more information about Jean Batten at Te Ara: The Encylopedia of New Zealand and NZEdge: The Global Life of New Zealanders.

Pleasure in ambiguity

Who else has passed this way? Cobbled lane, North Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie 2016

“To me photography must suggest, not insist or explain.”
– Brassaï

Ambiguity in an image can come from many sources; choice of subject, an unusual camera angle or focal point, unexpected movement, or shooting through an opaque surface — to think of a few.

Detail, PixCell-Red Deer, sculpture by Kohei Nawa, seen at the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, Australia. Image: Su Leslie 2016

Out there. Visitors outside the National Gallery of Victoria, seen from the Waterwall. Image: Su Leslie 2016

By suggesting, rather than explaining, the photographer allows every viewer to create their own meanings and stories.

More fun that way.

Posted to Debbie’s weekly quotation-inspired image challenge at Travel with Intent

Sing out strong

Young talent. My young friend Aiko performing at her mother’s book launch. Image: Su Leslie 2018

One of the pleasures of getting older is watching children I’ve known since birth develop their talents and grow into themselves as adults.

Posted to Ragtag Daily Prompt | sing

The loveliest distance

“A curved line is the loveliest distance between two points.” — unknown. Children’s art class. Image: Su Leslie 2018

Art begins with the line; sketches, paintings, even three dimensional works.

It seems to me that the urge to mark lines on a surface is quite fundamentally human. From paleolithic cave art to toddlers “redecorating” walls with Mum’s lipstick (true story — but it was my brother, honest); in all times and at all ages we seek to explore, document and indeed change our world with lines and all that flows from them.

Or as art historian Sir Kenneth Clark put it:

The difference between what we see and a sheet of white paper with a few thin lines on it is very great. Yet this abstraction is one which we seem to have adopted almost instinctively at an early stage in our development, not only in Neolithic graffiti but in early Egyptian drawings. And in spite of its abstract character, the outline is responsive to the least tremor of sensibility. 

At a cultural level, line-making helps to define humanity.

At a personal level it makes us happy — and sometimes deeply unhappy.

“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” — Pablo Picasso

The joy children experience in making art can so quickly be extinguished by external — and internal — critics. “That’s no good” becomes “you’re hopeless at art”, which becomes “I’m not creative.” I actually heard a woman at an art workshop say that while introducing herself to the group.

I started writing this post for Debbie’s One Word Sunday, where this week the word is lines. Then I realised that when I talk about art, and about making art, I am also talking about happiness. So I’m adding the post also to the Lens-Artists challenge | happiness is.