Capture by A photoblog

Introducing ...

Please welcome Doug Richards to Capture, with a selection of his photographs from the streets of central Auckland.  The photographs were all taken in 2011, the year of Our Cup and of Occupy, and many memorable moments in between.

Doug posts his photographs online at http://dougnz.deviantart.com/gallery/

Check them out.

City Scenes: Auckland street life in 2011 as seen by Doug Richards

I was born and bred in Auckland and started taking street photos in the 1970s after having seen a book of Cartier-Bresson's photos in a library. For me the greatest joy of street photography is that it causes me to actually look at the world around me, rather than it being just background noise. I never feel more alive than when I am walking the streets looking for that special moment. I particularly look for "les petites joies" the little joys that play out in front of us. Another influence of mine is the very talented Maria Cimetta from Bologna, whom I consider to be be one of the best street photographers.

Doug Richards, 2011.

Introducing...

This week we are very pleased to welcome Murray Cammick to Capture with a selection of photographs from his Flash Cars series.

We hope they will inspire you all to share your own captures of flash, or not so flash, cars in the comments.

Street Music: 1970s Auckland nightlife through the lens of Murray Cammick

I photographed V8 cars and night life in Queen Street, Auckland for about five years from 1974 to 1979, starting as a photography student at Elam under the esteemed tuition of John Turner and the late great Tom Hutchins. As I took thousands of photos in a very visually stimulating environment it is hard work sorting them out. For this series I wanted to expose photos that had never been seen before and not a part of the two "Flash Cars" exhibitions I did at Snaps Gallery in 1976/1977. In the same year as the second exhibition took place I started co-publishing RipItUp magazine and my lens became more focused on the music scene than Queen Street, but I do recall checking out Queen Street after attending shows, to see what cars were in town. I would park my Morris 1000 in a side street before checking out the main drag. Thanks to Alec for helping with the captions and I would like to contact people who appear in these photos, so if you or your car appear here please contact me at m.cammick@xtra.co.nz.

Welcome.

We are pleased to welcome our first guest contributor to Capture Adrienne Rewi, with a selection of recent photographs from Christchurch.

As always we hope the captures Adrienne has kindly presented will lead to contributions from the floor.

Over to Adrienne.

Guest Photographer - Adrienne Rewi.

Since reverting back to journalism after a career as a visual artist, my camera has become my primary ally in recording my experience of the world. I am never without one of three cameras – most often my Nikon D3000. I also use a compact Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX01 and my Android Smartphone.

A visual/verbal interpretation of the world around me is key to who I am and I am drawn to unexpected juxtapositions. I never use a flash and my photography is frequently theme-based.

I see beauty everywhere – even in the ruins and drama of the Christchurch earthquake. I enjoy photographing people but more often than not, my earthquake images are people-free. For me, that absence better captures the prevailing sense of destruction, emptiness and loss that now colours inner city Christchurch.

http://adriennerewiimagines.blogspot.com

Colour is so hot right now. Colour blocking is all over fashion - big bold chunks of bright colour. Ok, I know, this is New Zealand - colour is scary.

But there's something about colour that brings a little cheer and happiness. Perhaps this is why big colour has come back into vogue -with all the things there are to worry about these days, it's nice to have something to just give you a little lift. Wearing black on the outside because black is how you feel on the inside is a luxury for boom times.

So with this in mind, I've started to notice colour when I'm out and about. Here are a few selections from the bold new world of colour that is 2011.

And the winners are...

After literally minutes of deliberation, we have chosen the winners of our opening week competition for the Flying Nun's Greatest Bits compilation, Tally Ho.

They are, in no particular order;

Tom Ackroyd for his instantly iconic picture of Richard Langston & Roger Shepherd.

Fooman for his beautiful photograph Waituhi lookout.

Please hit reply to this post, or my email link and let us know where to send the CDs.

Additionally, because we like the cut of his jibe, we decided to add an extra prize for Ian Dalziel for turning a negative into a positive with his yellow cab, parking lot ensemble.

Ian, we ran out of CDs, so Jonathan has offered to have one of the Flying Nun photos of your choosing printed at A5 size, on quality paper.  Let us know your preference and where to send it.

Thanks again everyone for the great contributions to the opening week.  Now the election is behind us, we'll be getting some more photographic distractions ready for you soon.

Upload Guide - of sorts.

These tips will go in the links section to the right of the main page and comments pages henceforth.

1) Size matters;  We now recommend you reduce the file size to around 500 kilobytes if possible.  In terms of image size, the images on the Capture gallery pages are 940 pixels wide. Of course if you have a panorama, or wider shot you want to share, these restrictions are just a guide.

Reducing to this size will also make it less likely your high resolution capture will be pilfered for use elsewhere.

2) Add text; The text will show under the image, like a caption, and must be added before the image is uploaded.  No text, no upload.

3) Wait for it:  If you refresh the page before the image has fully loaded, you will have a car park under your image [sic], which might be fun for Mr D, but probably not you.

4) .jpg best; The developers have sorted the JPG/jpg problem, but it is probably safest to use .jpg in general as the file type.

5) Help!;  Use the email link if you encounter further problems.

If you have more helpful tips, please feel free to send those too.  These are largely crowd-sourced guidelines as it is.