Corner, Cafe Royale, Palmerston North

I was sitting in Cafe Royale with a coffee, writing about photographing, and I looked up, and this was one of the things that caught my eye.

All content © 2016 Pete McGregor

The path with no end

This is a heavily processed composite of three photographs, intended to convey an impression. If I could say what the impression was, the image wouldn't be necessary.

All content © 2015 Pete McGregor

Apparition (4): Foetal

The last in the series. Here's the first.

All content © 2014 Pete McGregor

Apparition (3): Bone

No. 3 in a series. No. 1 here.

All content © 2014 Pete McGregor

Apparition (2): Genie

No. 2 in a series. Here's No. 1.

All content © 2014 Pete McGregor

Apparition (1): Woman

Something a bit different. I saw a quotation in a Little River gallery a few weeks ago: 'The purpose of art is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable'. I've heard various versions of this, attributed to various people, but it seems apt.

One of a series; more coming.

All content © 2014 Pete McGregor

We're all just passing through

Based on a photograph. Nothing more to say, only in part because I'm pushed for time.


All content © 2013 Pete McGregor

On the edge

All life lives on the edge.


All content © 2012 Pete McGregor

Old cans

I suppose cans like these will eventually survive only in museums. Now it's all red and yellow plastic — oil holding oil. (These are petrol cans, but it's all oil in one form or another.)


[28 May 2012, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 100–300 mm at 183 mm, ISO 200, 1/320 at f8]

All content © 2012 Pete McGregor

Old books

To what extent is a digital version a link to what has been? Not everything must be preserved — some things should be allowed to return to the form from which they arose. When an old book finally decays into dust and the imperfect fragments of memory, what has been lost, and how does that change if the text has been preserved in some non-corporeal way?


Do these questions prompt you to seek answers, or questions of your own?


All content © 2012 Pete McGregor

What is a book?

Left to right: Spencer's Principles of Ethics, Volumes I and II; Bantams, by Jack Hutton; Household Poultry Keeping; Poultry Keeping: Part 5—Chick Rearing; Bantams and Miniature Fowl, by W.H. Silk (First edition). The books about chooks date from the middle of last century; the two volumes of Spencer's work were printed in 1892.


[4 March 2012, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 100–300 mm at 100 mm, ISO 200, 1/40 at f4.5]

All content © 2012 Pete McGregor

Some days I feel like this

Not today, though. :^)


[24 January 2012, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 100–300 mm at 246 mm, ISO 400, 1/15 at f5.6]

All content © 2012 Pete McGregor

Back door, home

I've often wondered about the true meaning of "home". I suspect there isn't one, although there may be many. The closest I've come so far might be that home is where you can die without wishing you were somewhere else.

[29 April 2011, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 14–45 mm at 24 mm, ISO 800, 1/6 at f8. Plenty of post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop.] 

All content © 2011 Pete McGregor

Rust, not sleeping

I read somewhere that humans have an astonishing ability to see faces in objects. Here's an example.

I love the colours of rust. I don't know whether it's the connotations — the reminder of impermanence, the recycling of things, the transition between states and so on — but I guess that doesn't matter. I just love the colours.

[9 April 2011, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 100–300 mm at 223 mm, ISO 200, 1/320 at f8]

All content © 2011 Pete McGregor

Saw and sack hook

In the little woolshed out the back, some of the carpentry hasn't been done by humans. I like the idea that things have multiple uses, often including the unintended.


[9 April 2011, Panasonic Lumix GH1, 100–300 mm at 100 mm, ISO 200, 1/13 at f8]

All content © 2011 Pete McGregor

Fiddle

Been a while since I've heard Slate Row playing at the Celtic — fortunately, not as long ago as this photo.




[24 November 2007, Canon 20D, 300 mm f4 L IS, ISO 3200, 1/80s at f4] 


All content © 2011 Pete McGregor

Tea — one of the great joys of life

I'm slowly learning about good tea, a process I expect will never end. Late last year this book arrived in the mail: a completely unexpected and highly thoughtful gift from Jo at Ya-Ya's House of Excellent Teas in Christchurch (the source not only of my excellent teas, but excellent advice on brewing them). The book will soon continue its travels, and although I'll miss it, I'll enjoy the knowledge someone else will get to appreciate it — and maybe appreciate tea a little (or a lot) more.  

I've noticed something curious about my tea-drinking, though. While I love good tea, brewed carefully and enjoyed with proper attention, I still enjoy a mug of gumboot tea — a strong brew of supermarket stuff with a drop of milk. I never drink it alone, but with friends (probably the essential factor) I enjoy it: I don't drink it out of politeness. A good tea bag will even suffice*, although I've maintained for years now that tea bags are inventions of the devil, along with cellphones and other abominations.

Maybe that says something about tea — that it can transcend its own adversity and even when abused can still offer something to the drinker?


*Budget bags dropped into milk and soaked briefly in tepid water are an entirely different matter — and I don't exaggerate: this kind of evil can still be encountered here, often from cafés that pride themselves on the quality of their coffee.

[Update, 14 January 2011: Thanks to AJB for alerting me to Christopher Hitchens' highly entertaining, delightfully crotchety and often wrong essay on How To Make a Decent Cup of Tea. He speaks, of course, about the particular style of tea known here in Aotearoa as "gumboot" and elsewhere by other names including "sergeant major's tea" (thanks, Avus).]

[11 January 2011, Canon 20D, 24–105 mm f4 L at 82 mm , ISO 400, 1/13s at f11]

All content © 2010 Pete McGregor

Posting postponed

Sorry, I have a vicious dose of 'flu — probably swine 'flu, which I trust not too many people will think is appropriate. Not enough energy to work up photos. Life is down to the absolute necessities. All going well, I'll be back in a few days.

[14 August 2010; Laptop, fingers, semi-functional brain.]


All content © 2010 Pete McGregor

The dream of flight

From the time we first became self-aware, surely we looked up and longed to fly.  Still, despite our technology, our sheer power, our marvellous accomplishments, we can no more fly like a tern than we can change the past.


[A heavily processed photo of a whitefronted tern at Flounder Bay]

All content © 2010 Pete McGregor

Write every day

The most common advice one hears about writing is to write. Usually it's something along the lines of "Write every day". I think it's sound advice, which I follow, usually first thing in the morning after I get up and start making a pot of tea.

I love writing with a fountain pen. The one in the photo is a Parker Classic; it feels good in the hand and writes more smoothly than any of my other pens. Unfortunately, it leaks a little around the collar — just enough to make it messy unless I hold it well back from the collar. I no longer use Quink, preferring the wonderful Noodler's X-feather because it has much less tendency to bleed through to the other side of the paper and has the huge advantage that it's waterproof when dry. The notebook is a Moleskine cahier; the mug is a much-appreciated gift (that's Snufkin, in case you didn't know. He's the closest thing I have to a hero).
[30 January 2010; Canon 20D, 24–105 mm f4 L at 50 mm, ISO 400, 1/5 at f11. Substantial post-processing in Lightroom and Photoshop; I added the grain after taking the photo back in Lightroom.]

All content © 2010 Pete McGregor