Container City

Yesterday we went to 'Container City' the new and emerging heart of wounded Christchurch. Visited the Apple Store, Johnson's the Grocer and Scorpio Books - all buzzing with lunchtime activity. It's so good to see the Central City begin to show signs of life again. Who knew that containers could look so good?

 More pictures at: https://picasaweb.google.com/102496606900301125582/ContainerCity#

Glentui Bush

Took a walk in Glentui Bush on Monday with the intention of refining my processes for High Dynamic Range photography in general and panoramic HDR in particular. This was the second trip as I totally messed up the process on Sunday and came back with only half decent material. The second time was much better and the process seems pretty solid now (if a little time consuming).

This shot is the compilation of a 3 frame x 6 exposure sequence (18 images) taken at ISO 100, f8 and speeds between 1/500 and 1/15 second. Each exposure sequence was combined in Photomatix Pro and the three images stitched in AutopanoPro. Further processing was done in Photoshop using Topaz filters.

More pictures from this outing can be seen at: https://picasaweb.google.com/102496606900301125582/SpringGlentuiBush

The wonder that is us.

"From conception to birth" - a 'must watch' TED video for every mum and dad or mum and dad to be. Beautifully presented ...

Come to sunny Oxford (NZ) ...

... where the justice is slow and lingering. Rumour has it he was put here several years ago by the good citizens of Oxford, who hadn't the heart to run him out of town.

For those law-breakers of an outdoor disposition, the stocks are just outside the jail. Welcome to Oxford :-)

Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity | Video on TED.com

After a long day assembling furniture, this TED video brought a smile to my face. "IMPROV Everywhere" do odd things to make people laugh - sounds like a worthy occupation to me.

Don't play on the tracks!

I wasn't; I was walking along the maintenance walkway at the side of the track. Halfway to the centre of the bridge and back again. I had just stepped off the walkway when the freight train came along allowing me to get this picture:

The scary thing was how much of the walkway the freight train took up - I had thought I would be safe against the hand rail but, no way. Another photographic near miss :-(