Lindsay Creek, Dunedin Botanic Gardens
I’m getting a bit more interested in infrared photography and I have a little point and shoot I’ve installed CHDK on – a hack that allows it to shoot RAW – and I’m planning to make a hardware modification to it to turn it into a dedicated full spectrum camera.
In the meantime I have to satisfy myself with slow shutter speeds and a 720nm filter that is best rendered as black and white. Here’s an example from last year.
I’m really into long exposure photography and night shots are an easy way into that. This photo is one I took last year on my Fujifilm X100V.
The Esplanade Restaurant, Dunedin
I finished reading this book today which had been languishing on my bookcase since I bought it some time in the late 2000s. Part of my general “read what you own or borrow from the library” policy. We’ll see how long that lasts, but I’ve got no need of new books for a long, long time in that case.
Trouble in paradise is one of the oldest stories in the world. And at its heart that is the story this 1996 novel tells. In which a group of western backpackers in search of an authentic experience unspoiled by tourism find themselves living on a beach on a seemingly remote and virgin island.
In that way they’re kind of like the proverbial motorist who complains about traffic, oblivious to the fact they themselves are part of the problem. Further, they actually are disdainful of the Thai people and really you could look at the titular beach as a kind of western enclave. On the other hand, when you travel the locals aren’t there to amuse you. They are people just living their lives.
So a lot of the characters are unlikable. But that doesn’t mean the novel itself is. It’s well written as a first-person narrative and is a bit of a time capsule. Reminds me of Paul Theroux crossed with Heart of Darkness and Lord of the Flies.
I give it 3 out of 5.
Really need to do some more of this.
I went to my niece’s high school pantomime this evening. She danced well as a 1920s flapper. I think it was the Charleston, but I’m no expert in dance. I kind of have two left feet in that regard. At the very least it was Charleston adjacent – which looking at a map makes it a Summerville, or maybe a Georgetown.
But crikey, Christmas is looming and I really need to get a wriggle on with my shopping.
Nothing much going on today, so here’s a photo I took a while back.
Not much going on today. I watched an interview of the Prime Minister and my opinion that he’s a complete dipshit remains unchanged.
My other political activity of the day was starting work on my submission against the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi Bill. I’ll post it here once complete.
Otherwise it was a pretty cruisy day. I read a bit more of The Beach by Alex Garland. Played a bit of Elite: Dangerous. And pretty much chilled.
It was a glorious late Spring day in Dunedin today and I headed out to the Botanic Gardens to take a few photos. Mainly some test shots with my Pentax K2. I picked up a practically as new edition of the camera for a song recently. It’ll be turning 50 next year.
I haven’t developed the film yet – black and white. I think I overexposed the first few shots as it was Fomapan 400 and as you can see from the digital shot above it was a very bright day. I was shooting in aperture priority. Once I realised that, I stopped my lens down to the f/8-f/16 kind of range and started getting shots below 1/1000.
Anyway, lovely day, photos taken, blog entry completed.
After a couple of days of learning-by-doing and troubleshooting I have finally got WordPress up and running, self-hosted on a Raspberry Pi. I’ve had this domain for a while and I reasoned it would be a good idea to use it. So I’m ready to cast my thoughts to the world.
I do have social media, and I’m relying on that as the avenue of discoverability for this blog – Google’s not too flash at that sort of thing now. And the concept of POSSE (Publish on Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere) appeals to me. I’m able to post a link to my blog entries on social media. With regular backups in place, I am unlikely to lose content to the enshittification or collapse of social media networks.
That said, there’s something retro or maybe even quaint about doing this. Blogs are so web 1.0. And while independent written content is still available through sources like Medium, the fact people pay for it – directly through subscriptions or indirectly through advertising – places the onus on the author to produce constant content at a consistent level of quality. I don’t desire that kind of pressure.
Another thing is that when I was considering this blog and was looking for how-tos, almost all of them were focusing on search-engine optimisation and specialisation to find an audience. But there’s one thing I want to be clear about:
My hobbies are not side-hustles.
In part this is me making a stand against how uniform the internet has become. I’m sure you’ve noticed this too: a typical recreational browsing session might be dominated by Reddit with a bit of YouTube thrown in for good measure. Or it could be staring at Instagram or TikTok for much longer than you planned. In reaction to that, I’ve started discovering the Indieweb – made by enthusiasts who are being the change they want to see. Bringing back diversity to the online experience, rejecting the algorithms designed to keep you engaged and browsing long enough to sell something.
I only hope I have something interesting to say.
