Today it is my deep pleasure to present you the first photo by “TravellingLight”, a team of incredibly talented “partners in crime” from New Zealand.
In their works, they document New Zealand with a wonderful sensibility, often precisely catching this bitter-sweet spot between beauty and blandness of the country.
Expect more from Travelling Light in the future!
Photo © 2011 Travelling Light. Original here.
Lovely! Auckland’s first leaning hotel, solely for first mules! Whatever that might be.
Please note how our (well, or at least Grant Smithies’) reader Peter Gow added his own statement by craftily composing the surrounding traffic signs.
Photos © 2011 Peter Gow
Barry Read not only sent this snapshot of modern Kiwi forestry in action, but also a comment highlighting some of absurdities behind it:
“On the other side of this ridge is a sign on SH1 extolling us to let the trees ‘sleep’ – ‘They’re busy saving the World’.
This sums up our approach. Plant fast-growing, low-value trees that were originally planted to produce paper-pulp, and pretend they might be used for structures. Chop them down when far too young. (…) Fertilised by the wind these mono-forests are seen as barriers to bees. A good rain soon will ‘flush’ off any remaining top soil and debris into the waterways – where it will mix with the cow-shit on its way downstream.”
Update: Barry sent this great additional shot with the full message and the full horror. Thanks, Barry!
Photos © 2011 Barry Read
Our reader Hilary from Matarangi lived happily in her most beautiful corner of the entire universe. Until this gang of weekend intruders arrived at her favorite beach and got undressed…
No Google Maps coordinates of this one… stay off the Coromandel, city slickers!
Photo © 2011 Hilary from Matarangi… don’t dare to google it, 5th Avenue scum!
Glacier: foxy. Signposts: tilted. Background: foggy. Sigh, New Zealand, sigh…
Great shot by Grant Dommen, though! As always! Thanks!
Photo © 2011 Grant Dommen. Original here.
Our avid (yet mysterious) reader Liz activated her research skills and discovered a bonanza of material about our – and more so New Zealand’s – fence obsession.
Let’s kick off the fence special with this misty, but geometrically inclining shot by Neville 10.
From hereon, I largely quote Liz’s report:
The urge to create fences and walls out of discarded items, not endemic to New Zealand but “practised with vigour”:
A… toilet fence?!?! Can I see some photos of that, please?
Photo Attribution-NoDerivs 2.0 Generic (CC BY-ND 2.0) 2011 Neville10. Original here.
Ugly New Zealand reader Nanny Nwah unleashed a landslide of fantastic (and partially pretty gruesome –you’ve been warned!) findings over at our Facebook dependance. Here the more lighthearted highlights:
A piece of New Zealand history… for only 685K!
Thanks, Nanny! Magnificient work!
Our reader Caroline Glass contributed this visual symphony of 3 bicycles, an unspecified number of cars and heaps of concrete. Thanksalotta, Caroline! Another victim member of our steadily growing “Nest-besmircher Network”.
The plot thickens: suspicious resemblances between Twizel’s vivacious village center, masterly captured by the one and only Paul Roper-Gee, and this piece of evidence.
Conspiracy experts might also enjoy the fairly spooky triple-exposure effect.
Photo © 2011 Paul Roper-Gee. Original here.
After the tragic death of the Phar Lap, his fans and the racing fraternity ennobled the memory of the champion gelding by sending his arse back to Australia, keeping his bones in New Zealand, and exporting his shoes to the Philippines. A thoroughbred, a complete horsey, bossing the track and strutting proud and free in his domain: this image could not be complete without a statue of a frozen horse riding a goods lift up towards heaven. Travel well, wonder horse.
Another more-than-just-exquisite guest post by the valorous designer, teacher and author Alex Gilks, accompanying this magical shot by the sensational Grant Dommen.
Photo © 2011 Grant Dommen. Original here.
