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.
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.
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
Occupy Wellington Board
For the new year I have been trying different styles of street photography. Usually I use the aimless wandering style of street photography which means that you don’t really stop moving and capture whatever happens in front of you, this method is great for when I have Samantha in the backpack because she gets bored if I stand still too long. Over Christmas I have had a few opportunities to go out by myself and have been doing a bit of camping in one spot and waiting for something to happen… These shots were basically done by standing in the middle of the footpath without moving for about 5 minutes 🙂
These are of the Occupy Wellington board which stated that the city council was evicting them from where they are located on the 4th on January… As far as I know they are still there
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Smokin
For the last few weeks in Civic Square the has been an African festival happening. Mostly is seems to revolve around food 🙂
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Sitting In Civic Square
School holidays are upon me again… It’s a time where my wanderings are a bit curtailed having to look after two small people not just one… So its back to the archives for a week or so until I can get out shooting again…
Here’s one from summer in Civic Square.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Coffee Vs Beer
This is from the other weekend where rain interrupted a street shoot with me and Fergus (Cunningvision).
The first shot is sitting outside the St James Theater on Courtenay Place drinking coffee with Rollei on the table pre-focused and the second is on Cuba Street outside J J Murphy’s drinking beer with the same setup although I did have to get Fergus to lean out of the shot while I took it and it was a bit under exposed…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Cops With Spray Cans? WTF?
I spotted this in Leftbank Mall earlier in the week… Apparently the police are looking for new ways to recruit people.
Um isn’t this kind of illegal? Maybe they got permission?
To me this just evokes images of a couple of uniformed cops with spray cans and stencils looking shifty… possibly one on lookout while the other puts up the stencil… both jumping at the sound of any passerby…
The old guy looking in the window was just a bonus…
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
Shooting The Shooters
Shot from last weekend when Fergus aka Cunningvision and I went out for a street shoot, which 10 minutes into it the weather packed up and rained for the next hour or so…
This didn’t mean that we packed it in just that time was also spent at Galleries, drinking coffee and later on drinking beer 🙂 I got some shots while drinking both coffee and beer so a productive use of time all round.
Rolleiflex 2.8 E, Ilford HP5+ 400 ISO Film, CanoScan 9000F Scanner.
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