A New Zealand Northland Christmas - Post #6

Christmas Day - 2011

Who is that lady with her arm around Jeff?  Oh, it's me!  Not too often do I appear in front of the camera.  If you want to read a fun story about who is taking this photo, click HERE.

Moving on, Christmas morning was beautiful.  Since it was Sunday, we found a church to attend in the next little town.  It was a tiny congregation and all were either Maori or Polynesian. 

After a lovely service celebrating the birth of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we said our 'goodbyes' and headed down the road to the next little village.....

I

.....and found ourselves in a quirky little hamlet called Rawene.  Of course it was not pronounced 
Raw we' knee, like I would guess.  
It is Rrrrrrrrrrrah' wha knee, with a definite roll of the 'r' and emphasis on the first syllable.  It is a sleepy little place with a few quaint and colorful seaside stores, and a mixture of local fishermen, shop owners and traveling tourists.

The road ended here in Rawene.   We had to take a short ferry ride to continue our trip north.  As you can see, our beautiful, sunny morning was starting to cloud over, turning dark and transforming the beautiful turquoise/green water to a dull gray/green.  


When shooting travel photography or landscape photography, it really doesn't do any good to be disappointed because conditions aren't what you hoped for.  If you are, then you'll spend a good amount of time being disappointed.  Either the weather will be wrong, the time of day will be wrong, you didn't have time to look for the perfect composition, interesting people turn their backs to your camera, etc. etc.  I'm trying hard, (and not always succeeding), to look at the situation I'm given, and try to find and isolate something interesting to shoot, even if it's not what I really wanted originally.  Here,  I tried to shoot in the direction of the clouds, because they were more interesting that the water.  And as I looked around the little town, my eye caught the single rose that stood out from the backdrop of weathered old building and dead branches.  This was my artistic shot and I edited it using PW Action Old West.  
(I love this action, and if you are not familiar with it let me know and I'll tell you where you can download it for free.)

(Part 2 of Christmas Day to be posted tomorrow)