Wagamama window, Wellington

Kia ora tatou:

The last few days have been both painful and revelatory.

Little did I realise  how my post of Saturday morning would generate such adeeply-moving and generous response from all of you.

In that time you have posted, sent me emails, phoned me and goivenme massive support.

I am deeply honoured and deeply grateful. My thoughts being elsewhere, and having  access to the Internet only from my Blackberry, thanking you all sufficiently has not been easy to do.

May I express my heartfelt gratitude and hope that you will forgive me for not replying on an individual basis.

Namaste.

We can only wait.

While i do so, I have  begun to write again. I hope the previous two posts will give you something to read and enjoy.

Nga mihi ki a katoa

Sony A900. 24mm. ISO 100, f8 @ 1/320

The future was rushing towards me, drawing ever closer, arriving on the horned wings of an approaching storm. I looked up in horror, in ghastly realisation, and knew that there was nothing, nothing at all I could do to escape, to turn it away….

I am more convinced than ever that whatever we photograph, we need to be passionate about it, we need to embrace it.

Being a restless soul and a Libran to boot, and thus deeply aware of the duality which dwells in all of us, I cannot help myself. I need at least one other way of photographing. I love photographing the landscape, being out there with Creation and drawing it, drawing from it what it is saying to me at the time.

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Sony DSC R-1, ISO 160, 1/640@f8

I know that I have blogged about this many times, but there’s only so much you can do when you’re stuck on a ferry for 3 hours, with nowhere to go (unless you fancy a long swim). You can sleep; you can read a book; you can sit there inside the tin can, watching the family-friendly movie which they supply and which I inevitably do not want to watch. You can sit in the bar and get quietly drunk. Or you can head to the cafe and beat up your gall bladder on a diet of fat-enriched fat.

Or you can watch all the other people on the boat and make photographs of them…

I must be getting old (well, I don’t feel old) but it seems to me that every time I make the journey across Cook Strait, either I have attained the status of a Methuselah or the other passengers are all getting younger. Or both.   The number in my age group seems to lessen with each trip and the number of Gen Z’ers to be on the increase. I watch from my own life perspective and, of course that gives me the chance to be “objective”.

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Kia ora tatou:

As a few of you know, Heather and I have been journeying for the last few weeks, looking for the right place to settle and begin again…or continue what has been begun. For some time I have  had a dream of building a centre, a whare oranga, where I could teach workshops, write, guide/mentor,  and be of assistance. As some of you also know, I spent a portion of 2008 and 2009 studying mauri hau ora. Understandings gained from that, and from my time in South Africa, have been feeding themselves through into my work, and adding to a teaching philosophy I developed for myself while working for NatColl Design Technology College some years ago.

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