Outside The Stadium

My new book on rugby, spectators and the Eden Park Stadium around the world  championship contest just staged in New Zealand.

Link to a preview and purchase below

http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2610716

Rugby World Cup Opening Fireworks

Tidal Stream - Strong ©.mp4

ZEITGEIST: MOVING FORWARD | OFFICIAL RELEASE | 2011

Headland - Sculpture On The Gulf - 2011

Exhibit 33 . Earth Echo
© Carolyn Williams.



Talent :
Freya Parmenter

Headland - Sculpture On The Gulf - 2011

28. Relective Lullaby

© Gregor Cregar.

28th January-20 February

Recommended

Mola Mola

During a summer cruise returning from the Bay of Islands on NZ's Northern east coast I was sailing in light airs through plankton and jelly fish rich waters .
Off Cape Brett I saw an unusually  large no of sun fish - MOLA MOLA (Millstone),  basking and feeding on the surface, they're waggling fin's drawing attention, looking initially like very large if lazy sharks fins.
A day later several miles offshore, north of the idillic Mimiwhangata,  I was thrown off my feet when my 9 metre yacht stopped dead and porpoised backwards in the water, a very large sun fish was seen wobbling off for deeper water.
Ouch!
With a broken spade rudder  I made for an anchorage at crystal clear Mimiwhangata to assess damage, catching a fine tuna for dinner along the way.
Seems my beautifully balanced boat Te Kouma sails well with the wind for'ard of the beam with 18 inches less rudder.
I am reminded of the incident by coming across this fine image of a sunfish on the FB site of Ocean Defender
http://www.facebook.com/oceandefender.

Te Kouma my beautiful home for 10 years.

hightide pete

Photography I Value.

                                                                                                                      Flor Garduno

Forty years of image immersion / saturation and tireless exploration of photographers published work, access to private and university library's, collecting vast piles of books and magazines have — well , left me somewhat familiar and for some time underwhelmed by the work of others .
This at once both worried and calmed me .
Enough input already `I cried'.  I was seemingly happy to find my voice without further external stimulation and yet a disquieting thought remained that I had become polarized or too jaded to be truly excited by the wonderful personal work of others, thereby defeating my own projections.
Of course along the road there have been markers, but only recently did a pattern crystalize and the weight of these beacons light a tractable path.

                                                                                                                                  Flor Garduno


The common features of these photographers were that they chose to express themselves in high end black and white analogue images, were all from Mexico / Latin America and born in the 1940s — 50's.
Beyond , or perhaps because of this,  they all resonated uncomfortably with my brief and turbulent travels into northern Mexico in the mid seventies. Travel overshadowed by political and socioeconomic unease with `hippy gringo's' and the many kidnappings prevalent at the time, in the tough desert regions adjoining the opulent US with it's contrasting wealth.

Traveling with the local people by train, made us conspicuous and a lack of language skills and hippy demeanor attracted a squad of four well armed Policía Federal Preventiva (Federal Preventive Police) and an officer who held up the train's departure while they pointedly removed and searched the ceiling lining in the carriage above our heads, and then shadowed us for every hour of our brief underfunded stay.
Of course the travelers view is one of surfaces and contrast all of which under the magnified mid summer heat , and surveillance only brought home the mystery and separation of the experience.

                                                                .                                                      Graciela Iterbide


That there was a dark and secretive spiritual element interwound with the fierce harsh light, funereal black clothing and flashes of brilliant colour that passed before me was fueled by the recent mystical readings of Carlos Castenada and the shock of my first contact with a third world culture.

                                                              

                                                                                                                                          Graciela Iterbide

So it was years later that image makers, who understood and explored these, their native mysteries, slowly separated themselves from the torrent of visual input that I had become seemingly immune too My excitement grew as they formed a new canon in my understanding and appreciation of the power of the photographic medium.
                                                                                                                                          

                                                                       

                                                                                                                                       

                                                              Graciela Iterbide               

To hint at or cross the boundaries of the temporal world of photography's representation of light on surfaces and to tap into the spiritual and emotional depth of a cultural psyche, is at the core of my fascination with its power and potential, as a creative medium.
To see this applied to cultures beyond our experience and illuminate the archetypal and resonate in otherwise familiar and inexpressible ways is an epiphany.
                                                                                                                                          

                                                                        

                                                                                                                                          Mario Cravo Neto

Graciela Iturbide, Flor Gardino, Valdir Cruz and the late Mario Cravo Neto, have all produced work in exploration of artistic expression within their spiritual culture. In doing so, they open  powerful portals into the dark Mexican latino realms of art belief and superstition.

                                                                                                   Mario Cravo Neto

Elemental, haunting and technically masterful works by these photographers do to me what is the essential starting place for experiencing great works of art. They illuminate and resonate pathways littered with enquiry, exploration and perhaps eventually some understanding.

A solitary road for each viewer, like a braided river joining and separating on its path to the sea and back to the mountain top, source of all accumulated memory.

                                                                                                             Valdir Cruz
                                                                                                                                    

A RE-union ?

Between Christmas and New Years I finally had an operation to re join my fractured Humerus, while I am probably not up to wielding a huge tele lens on a heaving deck this summer , I am turning to scanning some of my vast back catalogue on film , completing a still life series and learning some pre book production software.
All projects that constant shooting have impeded. So a good thing.
Paul.
www.aquapx.com