Blackboard specials

This is the specials of the day blackboard at Lens cafe. Dishes inspired by the earthquake of Sept 4 2010. There are also some biased drawings referring to my fish catching prowes. Jealousy is a cruel mistress.

Some chairs

The light that bombards my studio on a sunny day drives me mad. I get this gut wretching sick feeling it is wasted if I'm not photographing someone of something. Sunlight, whether it is direct, diffused or reflected has a quality that no amount of artifical light can come near to simulating.
One day a week or two ago, the light was engulfing the room as I was doing some paper work. The urge came upon me to do some portraits. Sadly there was no one around, available or willing. However the chairs that they would sit on were. What seems like a few hundred years ago I took some portraits with out people, which were basically an empty chair and a wall.
With the photos above I've gone straight to using the chair as the subject for the portrait.
These are a few of the heaps of chairs I can't help collecting. Most are purchased at the local recycling shed for only a few dollars. Some need a bit of fix and a reupholster. Storage is a challenge. I keep about half a dozen in the studio which sometimes doubles as a cafe called Lens, for friends to come and sip and chat in the sun. Other chairs are stashed in the attic, garage, hallway and front room. If I get a new one I have to smuggle it in, or trouble ensues!

Chicken & egg

January was taken up with constructing an abode for some chickens we wanted.
I liked the idea of modeling it on a long drop style dunnie. I'm not a great fan of building plans so I just designed it as I went. By the time it was finished and our chickens spat out the first eggs, my dear wife Helen, estimated if I was charging my time, that first egg cost about a $4000!
A couple of our hens were rumoured to lay blue eggs. Eventually we have blue eggs. They are almost jewel like and small. I haven't been able to bring my self to eat one, the are so beautiful.

Pegs

My fascination and appreciation with things domestic seems to be increasing since I become a house husband. My dear friend Kirstin on her return from Napier and Gisborne where she and her children were escaping the hundreds of aftershooks, very generously gifted me a large collection of used wooden clothes pegs. I was instantly attracted to them. I rushed off into my natural light studio and took portraits of each one. I like the way no two are exactly the same. The years of use has burnished some, other look like a toddler has used them for chewing practice. I'm keen to put all the portraits in a series and publish it as a book.
I also did a group portrait. I enjoy the simplicity, elegance and colour of the vintage enamel bowl.

succulants

This snap was taken on an evening stroll a few days after the 22 Feb quake that destroyed so much of Christchurch and our people. The sadness is intense.
My brother Russell and his wife Rosemary generously gave us a reprieve from the aftershocks and lack of power and water for a few days. It was great to spend this time with family.

Bread

I once saw a women throwing out her old bread on to the berm, I thought this was a generous humanitarian act of kindness to the local bird population. As I watched she finished distributing the doughy morsels and then walked back across the road to her house. I am intrigued as to why she didn't just feed them on her own large lawn. Was she afraid of birds?, did she fear her cat may devour the birds?, did she not want them messing up her lawn? I'll never know
This picture is not of that incident. It's our back lawn, This was a test shot for a new wee point and shoot camera I had just bought. The results are quite pleasing, to me.

Pudding

Buried under all the fruit and flower salad is the first pavlova I've ever baked, room for improvement I feel.
The ocassion was the birthdays of my dear friends Kirstin and Grae.