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.
Bus Fatality Memorial
Last Saturday while I was wandering around I spotted this memorial of flowers on Willis Street… I decided to lean up against the wall of shops and wait for people to interact with the memorial. It turned out to be quite an interesting 20 minutes. There seemed to be an invisible line where people wouldn’t stop if I was too close but didn’t seem to notice me at all if I was behind this line. The difference was only something like 30cm difference.
Unfortunately it started to rain after this and the foot traffic just disappeared…
It turns out that the Tuesday before a woman was hit and killed by a bus here (News article HERE)
This is part of the Manners Mall bus lane change where road layouts have changed and previously one-way streets have been turned into two-way streets for buses.
Addition: Walked past the same spot today and all the flowers are gone… I wonder if the council didn’t like the reminders…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Darkhalide Photography 
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