Turuturu

Hawera, Taranaki, NZ, Dec 2012: The historic Maori pa site of Turuturumōkai, as of mid 2012 was in a terrible state of neglect. However in the duration, a group of local volunteers have taken it upon themselves to return this important maori (and pakeha) archaological site to how it used to look. It’s fantastic that […]

WT

Bulls, Rangitikei, NZ, March 2012: This iconic water tower at Bulls, has been a well known landmark on SH1 for half a century or so. Looking like a cross between a mushroom and a UFO, it’s always been a favorite structure of mine on the road between Taranaki and Wellington.

Manners St

Wellington, January 2013: While waiting for the bus one day, I took a series of pigeon ground level pictures. This was from way back in January, only recently getting around to hand developing the film (Ilford HP5). The camera was a venerable Olympus XA.

Mercy Truth

Wellington, Nov 2012: An abandoned prison garden- forsaken but not without hope…

Airbridge

Pyro

Pyromania is an impulse control disorder in which an individual repeatedly and deliberately starts fires- in order to relieve tension, for gratification or for relief. The term pyromania comes from the Greek word πῦρ (‘pyr’, fire). This was just one of a dozen buildings torched by a pyromaniac over a single weekend two years ago. […]

The Centre

New Zealand, Dec 2011: At the close of the Second World War, this former Air Force base was converted into a “Mental Deficiency Colony” to house children deemed ‘backward’. By the mid 1970’s it had become the largest psychopaedic hospital in the southern hemisphere, with a population exceeding 700. The centre was “deinstitutionalisation” in 2005 […]

Tokaora

Taranaki, NZ, September 2012: Unlike all the other abandoned schools I’ve photographed, this one has a happy ending… Tokaora school- which has been empty for at least a decade- now has new pupils. A nearby school had to move premises, so have given this little country school a new lease of life…

Departures

“All reality is a game. Physics at its most fundamental, the very fabric of our universe, results directly from the interaction of certain fairly simple rules, and chance; the same description may be applied to the best, most elegant and both intellectually and aesthetically satisfying games. By being unknowable, by resulting from events which, at […]