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.
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.
Half Frame Urbex
A couple of half frame panos… The first one is the abandoned Central Institute of Technology and the second one is an abandoned company that used to go by the name Universal Trading Company which reminded me of Universal Exports from James Bond 🙂
Canon Demi S Half Frame Camera, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Melbourne Cup
The final race of the Melbourne Cup…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Horse And Shoes
The other weekend we took the girls out for a horse ride… Needless to say I took my camera 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
African Drummers
Walking through Civic Square at the moment there pretty much always seems to be something on… I guess the rugby world cup tourists need something to keep them entertained between rugby matches.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
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