... to Magazine Bay

This medium sized wharf is just round the corner and up the road from Maraetai. I went about two hours before low tide on a 20 degree day and was disappointed by how many people were there ... people ruin good scenery photos! But if you slow the shutter right down, they turn into a blur or even disappear altogether.

I have minimal photo editing skills. And having learnt old school on film, believe if you take a good pic in the first place you don't need to edit it. But I did tutu (a word kiwi English has borrowed from Maori meaning 'to play') with these ones in picmonkey to crop them and add/remove the colour.

I imagine this place gets packed in summer. I think it would also make good winter photos with the big sky.

... to Cornwallis

Since my visit to Maraetai I have been googling 'wharf Auckland' and zooming in on google maps to possible locations on the coast around Auckland. This led me to Cornwallis way, way, way "out West" as we say in the south of Auckland. If I had a hovercraft, it would be about a 20km trip, but as I don't it was a 40km drive out through Titirangi. Different parts of Auckland have such different 'feels' and looks. Some places, I could not imagine living. But others like Titirangi felt and looked nice. Pity it's so far from work and house prices are probably triple my modest suburb!

Anyway, back to the Cornwallis. I was blown away by how beautiful it was. Truly beautiful. There were maybe 10 or so people fishing off the end of the wharf. Once group of young men had just lost a shoe over the edge and were trying to fish it up!

I was keen to practice my long exposure skills but made the complete rookie mistake of leaving my tripod connector at home. Grrr. So I ended up with some 'artistic' shots as I tried to hold my breath so as to not move the camera while the shutter was open.

Then I gave up and took 'normal' photos.

I will return to Cornwallis with all parts of my tripod again soon. I would also take visitors to NZ there. I think they would be blown away by the beauty of the place.

... to Maraetai

I had been to Maraetai a grand total of once before a recent photography meet up. It's a big 30k from my house! My frolleague (blend of friend and colleague) Belinda saw that Clinton of Intopix Photography was having a meetup at Maraetai Wharf a couple of Saturday evenings and asked if I was keen. So I joined Belinda, her daughter and niece. It was a small group of about 10 people and we played with long exposures. I love the way the water smooths out with long exposure. I'd like to learn how to capture the clouds better with long exposures too.

We then moved onto playing with the torches.

I have since watched some videos on using steel wool inside a whisk to make even cooler light pix.