Why Manakins Should Wear Underwear
Wellingtons wind at work again…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
RIP Blanket Man Ben Hana
Last Sunday Blanket Man (Ben Hana) died in the Wellington Hospital. Blanket Man spent the last 10 years living on the street in Wellington wearing nothing but a loincloth and an old blanket. If you have ever been to Wellington and walked along Courtenay Place you would have seen him. The memorial that has sprung up where he used to sit is nothing short of amazing, unfortunatley it is getting taken down/cleaned up on Tuesday as the city gets ready to host the Rugby 7’s in a couple of weeks.
As a street photographer I walked past him more times than I could count and always got a nod of acknowledgment… I tended to not take his photo and respect what he was doing (Wellington is too small a place to piss off anyone living on the street by shoving a camera in their face) so the only images I have of him are from a long way away or when he was asleep 🙂
Walking along Courtenay place will seem empty without him…
Rest In Peace
Here is one of the shots I did have of him…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Electric Busker
I usually don’t take images of buskers unless I give them money but this one was too good to miss 🙂 Will have to track them down and give them a copy…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Abandoned Service Station
Spotted this while driving round Upper Hutt a week or so ago. The amusing thing with this shot for me was that when we pulled up I parked directly opposite with the plan of using the car for a tripod. Unfortunately the car was too close and since I only wanted to move it a couple of metres I got Fergus (Cunningvision)to take the handbrake off and pushed it back. Just as I was doing this a kid walked past and gave me a WTF kind of look 🙂 I guess i was pushing the car away form the petrol station 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Sleeper On Cuba
With the weather being occasionally nice the sleepers come out of the woodwork… Its amazing what they can sleep through since there was a busker not more than 50 metres away getting the crowd to clap along and generally being noisy.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Occupy Wellington Again
I walked past the Occupy Wellington camp last weekend while on my normal photo wanderings. They are back on the verge of being evicted again with the council trying to clean up the city for the up coming rugby 7’s at the start of February.
The protest has changed a bit from when it started as most of the original activists having left only to be replaced with predominantly homeless people. There has even been accusations of verbal abuse to female passerbys late at night.
It seems that this protest has lost its way a little… But at least it still makes for interesting images 🙂
Just after I took these a massive gust of wind nearly blew them away…Literally.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Airport Waiting
I went to the airport the other day to catch up with a friend who was passing through. I didn’t check their flight before I went and it ended up being delayed something like 8 hours so I missed meeting them but got to hang around the airport for an hour to take photos 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.85 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Cunningvision and Yashica 124G
A shot of Fergus (Cunningvision) and his Yashica 124G TLR at an abandoned lawn bowling place by where he lives in Petone.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
In And Out Of Shadows
Cut down the middle…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
London Festival Of Photography Entry
I finally managed to get round to entering the London Festival of Photography street competition yesterday.
I’m not sure these are my strongest images but I just needed to get something in since the deadline was 6am this morning…
I thought I would put this up today since there isn’t any new material in it 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Picture Of Self
I haven’t put up one of these for a while… 
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
A Year Of Photography With A Rolleiflex
Well 2011 is finally over, its been a pretty good year, Ive had the usual ups and downs but have managed to take quite a few images.
Here are some highlights from Rollei and I in 2011… Enjoy 🙂
We walked the streets when no one else was around…
…and went to some events.
We traveled to Auckland…
…and did some assisting.
Sometimes we walked for hours and only took a single shot…
… and sometimes we shot a whole roll of film in under 30 minutes.
We went shooting in the rain…
…and when it was too dark to see the numbers on the dials.
Sometimes we were a little too slow…
…but sometimes our timing was bang on.
We self published a book on street photography…
…and even sold a few copies…You can see it HERE
We took photos of people taking photos, but never photos of people taking photos of people taking photos.
We finally broke through the mental barrier of going up to people in the street and asking to take their photo, not one person said no.
Sometimes we went to different places to shoot…
…and sometimes things happened right outside our door.
We went urban exploring with friends…
…and found some pretty cool places…
…which led to some more assisting.
Sometimes we waited to get the shot…
…but mostly we just wandered around aimlessly and watched for stuff to happen…
…and happen it did…
…sometimes it was pretty random…
…sometimes it was really random…
…but it was all good…
Yup… all in all its been a pretty good year.
Bring on 2012!
All images shot on Rolleiflex 2.8 E
Darkhalide Photography 
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