Bye Shannon

Wait a minute...what do you mean he's coming back after Christmas? Then why are we taking him out if he's not leaving for good? ....sigh...some people just think they're so damn important...

...like I was saying...

Pics from go-carting. Shannon is "leaving" Weta (for a month) so we took him out before he left. Just kidding dude :)

Number 28, that's my parent's house number. What does that mean? Absolutely nothing at all.

A "2-4" is what we Canucks call a case of beer. What does that have to do with anything? Absolutely nothing at all.

Number 25...

Racing in numerical order?

Some fierce action in the corners with lots of passing...not always clean though :)

Weeeeeeeee...I'm by myself!

Hunting down number 30.

Look at me! I'm SPECIAL!

WARP speed.

Ludicrous Speed Colonel Sanders!

Portraits of Jessica

Portraits 101 continues...my attempt at becoming adept at taking portraits, both formal and informal, natural light and flash/strobe assisted. This time it's a somewhat legit situation. One of the other photogs at work sent out an email asking if anyone was interested in helping his friend update her portfolio pictures...so obviously I volunteered. Her name is Jessica Smith, she's currently studying acting and theatre here in Wellington, and also does a bit of modelling.

I sent her an email with a link to my flickr site and I guess she liked my pics enough to let me take her pics...or maybe it was just the fact that I told her I wouldn't charge her...hmmm...ya, probably the freebie.

Anyways, we met up downtown and shot a bunch of pics inside the lounge at the Embassy Theatre. There's nobody in the theatre on a Saturday afternoon. Not sure if the movies don't start til later in the afternoon, or if everyone just has better things to do, especially when the weather is as good as it was today. But it was all good, we had the entire lounge to ourselves, several tables and chairs, couches, a baby grand piano, lots of windows (except most of them had annoying metal design work on them creating crappy shadows), and the crazy burgundy wall. Oh, and they were playing some decent tunes over the speakers too. So we tried a bunch of different shots over the course of 2-3 hours? Only had a couple people wander by and peek in, then just went to sit elsewhere. Staff didn't care at all either, which is a good thing since I was moving most of the furniture around :)

Overall I'm pretty happy with how they turned out. Some decent shots and some NOT so decent ones..yikes!! While reviewing the pics, I also noticed some things I didn't do which would've made a lot of shots better, so I'll try to pay more attention to those next time.

Here's the crazy burgundy wall. Actually it turned out to be a decent looking backdrop! I guess the old moral still holds true...Never judge a book by it's cover.

ps. you might be wondering why the hell she's wearing a corset. it's not by choice. she wanted a "clean" headshot from the collarbones upwards so for her final images, i'd have to crop the images much tighter to show just to the tops of her shoulders.

Toast Martinborough 2007

This weekend was Toast Martinborough 2007. The annual wine, food, and music festival in the Martinborough wine region, about an hour Northeast of the city. They call it a "wine, food and music" festival, but really it's ALL about the wine...there just happens to be food and music there as well. Each vineyard has food and music on their grounds. Depending on the size of the vineyard, that can range from bbq to catered food to hotel restaurant service, and the music ranges from a small portable stage (think converted semi-truck trailer) to a full on roadie type stage setup with lights and monster speakers.

Tirohana Estate Vineyard

There were 10 main vineyards that participated this year. My favourite was Ata Rangi because they had the nicest grounds in my opinion. Manicured lawns to sit on, bleachers to watch the band, tables and chairs with umbrellas, and hay bails under the trees. And of course awesome food and wine. Ata Rangi's Crimson is a nice red, meanwhile Ruth Pretty Catering provided the food. They had awesome braised beef and pork dishes.

Chillin' on the lawn underneath the trees with a warm breeze, belly full of food, a glass full of wine, and some jazz on the stage...ahhhhh. When we first got there though, it sounded like someone was strangling a cat on stage...well not really, but someone was singing/playing an awful selection of tunes.

The weather couldn't have been any better. Low 20s and nothing but sunshine! Took a snap of this girl at the entrance gates with her 'parasol'. There were a lot of cute girls in summer dresses everywhere you went...I wasn't complaining.

A couple of the girls working the entrance tent. You hand in your ticket and in return receive a small wine glass to hang around your neck, and a small booklet with vineyard information and map locations. That glass is your entry ticket onto the shuttle buses and into each vineyard...also what you drink out of. You could walk vineyard to vineyard if you wanted to do so. Some were located across the street from each other, others a 5-10 minute walk away. A few were located at the farther ends of town though and the shuttle was the better choice.

Big head. I wasn't too sure who they were, but there were two of them, and they were pushing manual lawn cutters around.

"The Beat Girls", or at least one of them. They were one of the musical acts at Palliser. Singing 60s and 70s music with Supremes style choreography and costumes. They were pretty good.

Julia from Ruth Pretty Catering. I liked her shirt (old school egg beaters) so I took a picture of her.

You may know him as Vincent Yan, but this here is Honky Tonk Vince.

Lonnie trying out his new "stereoscopic" camera setup.

Mr. Movember a.k.a. James Ogle. Halfway through Movember, only a few more itchy weeks to go!

Bethen. Her mom's an ex-Weta peep. No wine for her, but I think she was eating grapes :)

Mr. Christie and his lady friend. Fellow Cre-tard.

The lawn at Craggy Range. This was our first vineyard. My first glass of the day was a nice Riesling.

One of the nice things about the larger vineyards like Ata Rangi, is that you never had to walk very far to get to one of the many wine bars. And if you wanted to be even lazier, there were little wine angels like Jess here, wandering the lawn with "holsters" of wine on each hip. Fill'er up ma'am.

A couple of the ladies working one of the wine bars at Ata Rangi. Did I mention the Crimson was good?

One of the lawn areas at Ata Rangi, and another below.

Martinborough Vineyard was also pretty nice. Chameleon, the hotel restaurant from The Intercontinental, provided the good eats here. No I didn't eat again, but I did have their Glazed Lemon Tart dessert...wow!!! With summer berry coulis and creme fraiche. Not very tart, in fact it was almost like a cheesecake. Oh yeah, I did try some of their Braised Lamb Shank with big cassoulet beans though...mmmmmm :)

Te Kairanga was probably the busiest vineyard this year. Yes their wines are good, but they also had the biggest musical guest for this year, local born soul-diva Hollie Smith. Late morning they had closed the gates because they couldn't fit any more people onto the grounds. So we went by later in the afternoon and caught these guys just getting onto the stage, Uncle Monkey, a rock cover band. They got the crowd going pretty good, and I had fun sneaking around on stage snapping some shots :)

The Uncle Monkey crowd.

I wasn't completely sure about this group. A lot of UK accents from what I could tell. I think couples were suposed to dress accordingly, a female version of the Spice Girls, and a male version? Your first reaction is, "damn that woman looks like a man...oh, it IS a man..." :P Fun crew though, I sat next to "Geri" on the bus...the one in the middle with the fur coat.

The obligatory nature pic...shot while waiting for a shuttle to come by.