My Guitar

Walking along Karangahape Road, Sarah and I spotted a vintage guitar store, so we decided to pop-in. I found this vintage Suzuki guitar and talked the guy down to NZD$200. It's acoustic-electric, heavy, solid, and black. The strings are a bit too high, so my fingers throb in pain after playing too long. However, since the strings are so high, the tone is loud, rich, an full. A true face-melter. I like it.

Auckland City

Auckland isn't exactly the nicest city in the world... It's not the worst, but it has a dark side. The city is surprisingly dirty. It is a sprawled-out and poorly-planned city with mostly sterile modern architecture. People rely on cars. The air is VERY dirty due to the fact that cars are not required to have catalytic converters and loads of buses spew forth black clouds of diesel exhaust. We don't have a car, hence we live in a modest closet-sized room which is all we can afford that is near the University. We walk and suck on the fumes.

It was my naive hope that things would be "better" here. More enlightened. "Clean, Green New Zealand," right? Instead, I've found a city grappling with maturity and the human race acting so superbly like the human race.

On-Line Wedding Picture Album

Click here on this link to view our On-Line Wedding Photo Album.

These pictures are mostly of the wedding party and family. We are expecting more candid pictures from another photographer. We'll post those pictures when we receive them.

Sarah's Sails

Sarah took this picture. ...I altered it a little bit.

Tiritiri Matangi

Sarah took these pictures on her class field trip to Tiritiri Island.

Auckland Harbour

The big tower to the right is the Auckland Sky Tower. The tower dominates the Auckland skyline. It was completed in 1997. It is the tallest tower in the Southern Hemisphere. Sarah says it looks like it belongs in Star Wars. I agree.

Auckland Volcanoes

Auckland was built on top of an extensive volcanic field.

Rangitoto, Auckland's largest and most recent volcano, can be seen in the center of the first picture. Rangitoto last erupted approximately 600 years ago.

The second picture features Mt. Eden's large crater. It is located right in the midde of the city.

Charlotte Meets the Bridge

I made another HDR image. This is a picture of the Harbour Bridge in Sydney, Australia. The yellow and green boat entitled Charlotte is a passing ferry. The Sydney Opera House can be seen in the distance.

Click on this picture for the full effect.

New Zealand in HDR!!!

You should click on this picture to get the full effect.

This is a picture that I took about an hour north of Auckland. Yes, it really is a picture. It has been significantly enhanced using a program called Qtpfsgui. This program creates an HDR image. HDR stands for High Dynamic Range imaging. It is NOT the same as High Definition (HD), as commonly seen on televisions.

HDR images are kind of trendy right now, so I figured I'd give it a try. The sky came out a little pixelated, but I think it still looks kind of cool.

Click here to see the original image that was used to create the posted image. ...it isn't quite as impressive.