Weekly Photo Challenge: Possibility

Posted on 15 October 2011 by SJPONeill

I can, I can, of course, I can…a steam engine climbs the Raurimu Spiral…

“As far back as I can remember, I have loved taking and looking at photographs of doorways, paths, windows, and roads – these kinds of images have always invited me in and encouraged my mind to wander. What’s beyond that ornate door? Whose window is that? Where would I end up if I continued on that road? These are what I call ‘pictures of possibility.’

I often do this…look at a side road or a farm track and wonder where it goes, what it might be like to explore one day , or maybe live along somewhere; or look at a window and wonder about the people who might live or work behind it…in this case, a steam engine on the Raurimu Spiral – commercial rail traffic here is all diesel-electric but occasionally a restored steam train will come along on a special outing – the steam plume is great for tracking the path of the Spiral which from here climbs through two tunnels and a complete 360 to emerge some one hundred and forty metres higher on the Central Plateau….in addition to the whole days gone by thing, I remember taking this picture and wondering about the people on the train…who were…where were they going…what little back stories filled each carriage…

Sometimes we come inside when we’ve left the TV on and there will be Kirk, perched in front of the screen attentively following every movement…He’s quite picky about what he watches, his favourites being ‘It’s Me Or The Dog!‘, ‘Country Calendar‘ and ‘The Dog Show‘ and only when there’s sheep or other dogs on the screen…he doesn’t get excited, just sits and watches…I often wonder what he’s thinking…what’s a Kirk’s-eye view of the world…?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Comfort

Posted on 8 October 2011 by SJPONeill

This image sprang to mind immediately when I saw the title of this week’s photo challenge. The back story to it is in Jacks where I first used this image a couple of years ago. Kirk is a canine who very much likes his home comforts…most of the time he is just a big sooky-nana….

Weekly Photo Challenge: Sunset

Posted on 2 October 2011 by SJPONeill

I guess the trick in this week’s challenge is to know whether a pic is really sunset or someone slipping in a dodgy sunrise…

But Sunset has another significance for soldiers, more than simply the going down of the sun and the closing of the day but a time to remember those who have gone before and sometimes to also mark the end of an era…here Sunset is a sad but beautiful tune played during Beating the Retreat as the flag is lowered…

This photo was taken on July 20, 1989 at the closing ceremony for the home of the First Battalion, Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment, at Dieppe Barracks in Sembawang, Singapore. The following month, in our own version of East of Suez, the battalion and its supporting force, began its relocation back to New Zealand, ending 32 years of continuous service in South East Asia.

As the battalion marched off that parade ground, a place of so many memories, for the last time, the roll of honour of those who had not gone home was read – a particularly sad moment for many of us as we had lost a number of friends through accidents in that last tour…remembering is particularly poignant here at the moment with the news on Wednesday of the death in combat of a second NZSAS soldier near Kabul…

Michael Yon wrote this on 24 September after a young soldier from his tent in 4-4 Cav was killed…

This whole tent is empty now. Chazray is gone and his buddies must be checking their emails in another tent. There were two more KIAs who were shot and so the internet was blacked out. One was shot in the chest and the other in the stomach. Very saddening. Families have been notified and so the internet is back on. It’s strange to see Chazray on the news and then look over at his empty cot and see his picture taped to the door. The video says he ran over the IED but he actually stepped on it but that doesn’t matter. All that matters is that he is missed by so many people.

While a soldier can always be replaced – no one is ever indispensable – the gap they leave is a different story altogether…the empty bed space, the position in the Prezzies rugby team, that spot in the bar where they always sat, the spot in family photos where Dad should be…

I didn’t know LCpl Leon Smith who was killed during a pre-emptive operation against insurgents near Kabul last week. I did know Cpl Doug Grant who was killed a few weeks earlier while doing the business against insurgents in Kabul. I remember him as a young soldier, third from the right in the back from of this photo, quiet and professional with the burning desire to learn demonstrated by many young soldiers of that period – when the camp library was shifted to a new building around that time, someone did some analysis of library loan patterns and found that the large proportion of professional military book loaning was done by JNCOs and soldiers, creating more than few ripples in the pond – the sort that so often answer a higher calling and earn the sand beret and winged dagger…in Dougie’s case, going back for a second time…

We are the Pilgrims, Master…We shall go always a little further…It may be beyond the last blue mountain barred with snow…Across that angry or glimmering sea…

Sunset can mean so much more than the simple disappearance of a ball of burning hydrogen and helium…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Fall

Posted on 25 September 2011 by SJPONeill

The theme for this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is ‘Fall’ most likely because the season in the US is now Fall, which we in the civilised world know as ‘Autumn’…it’s a little moot for us where we are as 99.9% of all the trees are evergreens so Autumn is really more about a (possible) change in weather conditions i.e. here we don’t have the massive leaf dumps associated with the end of Summer and the beginning of Winter. I say possible change in weather conditions as we don’t really have a clear delineator for those either: today is the first day of daylight saving here (I’ve been ripped off an hour!!), normally a good sign of impending summer but the same time last year it was snowing!!

So, anyway, the line I’ve taken with this week’s challenge is the more common association with the word ‘fall’ and I dredged up this photo taken on a school camp early in 1981. I know it was early ’81 because late ’81 I wasn’t in school anymore…It’s at a place called Camp Iona on the Kakanui River south of Oamaru – no idea whether it’s still there or not… the slats supporting the upper bunk bed have been removed in anticipation of the unsuspecting occupant leaping up on the bed bed without performing a precautionary prank check…you’ll note that the occupant of the lower bed has placed himself safely at one end of his bed – maybe he was in on it?

Weekly Photo Challenge: Faces

Posted on 17 September 2011 by SJPONeill

Penny

This week’s WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge Both busy and a bit under the weather this week, physiologically and meterologically, so short and to the point…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Textured

Posted on 10 September 2011 by SJPONeill

This could just as easily be a good entry for a ‘shiny’ challenge as one for ‘texture’…it is the prototype Fisher P-75 fighter in the R&D Hall at the National Museum of the USAF near Dayton, Ohio…I’d seen many pictures of aircraft in natural metal finish before but this was the first time I was ever up close and personal with one…”Oooo…shiiiiny” was my first response…”Man, that’s big!” was the second: because the hall is so packed it was difficult to get decent shots of some of the larger aircraft simply because there wasn’t enough room to back away…Hence I shot this one into the light and was surprised when it came out so well…

My next take on ‘texture’ is this afterburner can from the B-1B ‘Bone’ (B-One – get it??) in the modern hall at the Museum…this is where they dump hundreds of litres of raw fuel in order to get more thrust from the engines – and so the crew can see the needle on the fuel gauge move – downward!

And finally…

One iteration of the Interceptor from Mad Max at the recent Scale Model Expo in Wellington…it is relatively simple to get smooth shiny unblemished surfaces on models, it is somewhat more difficult to give an impression of dirt, grime and roughness…I thought this builder pulled it off rather well…

Weekly Photo Challenge: Path

Posted on 3 September 2011 by SJPONeill

Purakanui Steps

This week’s challenge shows the path from the road down to a little whaling cottage we used to own in Purakanui – the little village I also used in the ‘Old Fashioned’ challenge.

The cottage was really small...

...with a rusticly basic kitchen and two small bedrooms...

...but it had pretty cool views across the inlet - even though this one's on a crappy day...

Weekly Photo Challenge: Water

Posted on 29 May 2011 by SJPONeill

I’m sure there’s a road here somewhere…

The Great Thailand-Singapore Bike Ride…it’s 1988…some of the lads from Charlie Company, the First Battalion, the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment take up the challenge to ride from the Malaysia-Thailand border back to their base at Dieppe Barracks, Singapore…why? Because they could…Day 1 of the ride was also Day 1 of the eastern monsoon and from there life became interesting…

Kota Bahru, like most of the region, flooded out but most took it in their stride…

…and after many adventures, the final destination was reached…

The final leg…coming onto the Causeway…

This week’s WordPress Photo Challenge...and an interesting exercise in hearts and minds as we worked our way down the east coast staying on beaches and in small kampongs each night…much as I would have liked to have been riding, someone had to take the photos…plus I didn’t have a bike anyway…and I was just back from six weeks in the States…and it looked like hard work…these really were the good ‘old’ days…