Daily Photo – Baldwin Street: Planned Genius or a Happy Accident?
There’s something deeply endearing about Dunedin’s Baldwin Street. It’s the sort of place that makes visitors stop halfway up, hands on knees, and wonder how on earth the world’s steepest street ended up in Dunedin and why a road was built at such an angle in the first place. It looks less like a street and more like town planners had been enjoying a particularly enthusiastic lunch when they drew the lines. The truth, though, is far less deliberate and far more charming. Baldwin Street wasn’t planned to be the steepest street in the world. It just sort of… happened.
Back in the 1850s and 1860s, when Dunedin was still being dreamt into existence by Scottish settlers, the city’s layout was drawn up in London by people who had never laid eyes on the place. Working off maps with all the confidence of Victorian planners, they decided neat rectangular grids would do nicely – regardless of what the terrain actually looked like.
Unfortunately, when the surveyors arrived to peg out the lines, they discovered that one of those innocent-looking streets went straight up a hillside that appeared to have been designed more for goats than carriages. So Baldwin Street was built exactly as it appeared on the plan: a perfect, unwavering line pointing directly at the sky.
As for the name, a gentleman named William Baldwin, a provincial councillor and local newspaper founder has the honour of the street bearing his name. Although whether Baldwin ever trudged up the street is anyone’s guess, I like to imagine he did.
Boulder Beach, the place is magnificent. A rugged, windswept slice of South Island coastline that looks as though it hasn’t seen a nice promenade in its entire geological existence. No neat boardwalks, no conveniently placed benches. Just raw, elemental beauty and a sense that the wind has been in charge here for quite some time. The beach itself is a glorious jumble of colossal volcanic stones and dark boulders that clearly took a fair bit of tectonic enthusiasm to create. Between them are carefully placed pockets of fine sand, that arrived on wind and next waves. It’s beautiful, but let’s be honest, you wouldn’t want to jog on it.
More importantly, this wild stretch of coast is a vital sanctuary for the yellow-eyed penguin, or Hoiho, a bird so rare it seems perpetually startled by its own continued existence. The Department of Conservation, bless their cotton socks, does a sterling job protecting them, closing off parts of the area for months at a time while the penguins get on with the serious business of breeding. If you’re lucky enough to visit outside of those times, it’s a wonderful reminder of how nature can still write its own rules. You might spot a Hoiho making its slightly awkward way up the sand, or perhaps find yourself the subject of a disapproving glare from a resident sea lion. Best advice: keep your distance, there’s nothing quite like being told off by a several-hundred-kilo local to remind you who really owns the beach.
It’s a place that feels defiantly untamed, as if it’s politely declined every human attempt to tidy it up. And thank goodness for that. Because every so often, it’s good to stand somewhere that reminds you that nature, even here at the far edge of the world, remains profoundly and beautifully unmanageable.
A few of the enduring pleasures of summer in Aotearoa are beach days, barbecues that stretch long into the evening, and exploring walking tracks beneath the hot summer sun. And when it comes to places for walking, the Otago Peninsula has plenty to choose from. It’s one of those rare places that manages to feel both wild and welcoming at the same time, a glorious stretch of land where the views go on forever and you can easily lose an entire morning deciding which track to take next. There’s no shortage of choice out here, and each path seems to promise some new discovery, or at the very least, a better view than the one you’ve just left behind.
One of my favourite route begins down McMeeking Road – a lovely, meandering descent that eventually links up with the Highcliff Track proper, winding through open farmland and coastal bush before spilling you out towards Boulder Beach. From there, you can loop back via the Paradise Road Track, which climbs up to Highcliff Road, a satisfying, if occasionally breath-stealing, end to the journey.
Ah, Dunedin. Or as the founders – a determined band of Free Church Scots envisioned it: New Edinburgh. Looking down at this photograph, you can’t help but feel a flicker of sympathy for the poor soul charged with turning that grand vision into reality: the surveyor Charles Kettle.
Kettle, bless his geometric heart, arrived with orders to impose the dignified symmetry of an old Scottish capital onto a landscape that clearly loathes straight lines. His solution, and the city’s most curious feature, was The Octagon.
You can spot it hunkered in the centre of the grid here, an eight-sided plaza embraced by the slightly larger eight-sided ring of Moray Place. The sheer Presbyterian grit required to stamp such perfect octagonal order onto a landscape of hills and winding gullies is frankly heroic. Kettle wanted something “Romantic”, but what he achieved was a street plan so ambitious (and so steep – I’m looking at you, Baldwin Street, officially the world’s steepest!) that the horse-drawn traffic of the 1800s must have been perpetually on the brink of despair.
It is, in short, a glorious, muddled masterpiece, a city born from a meticulous Scottish dream and then cheerfully wrestled into being by New Zealand’s uncooperative geology. The result? A town centre that is as memorable as it is magnificently improbable.
I took this one night on the Esplanade, when I set out on one of my little missions of chance – otherwise known as “wandering about hoping something interesting happens.” I do this from time to time, mostly as a personal creative challenge, or perhaps as an excuse to postpone doing anything more sensible. The light wasn’t ideal, but that’s often when the best surprises appear, if you’re patient – or slightly foolish – enough to look for them.
And before you ask, no, the lights along St Clair aren’t actually those colours. They’re the usual street lamps, those modern LED ones that bathe everything in a sort of sterile hospital glow. Once upon a time, they were sodium vapour and turned the place a cheery shade of orange, like the world’s largest baked bean. I decided to give them a bit of artistic encouragement, a dash of colour and variation, just to see what might happen. After all, if the evening insists on being ordinary, you might as well give it a little nudge.
In the morning I woke early and peered out the window from between the curtains to see what kind of day it was – and it was a good one. Through the darkness, pockets of light were emerging on the horizon, with splashes of colour delicately sweeping across the clouds, as if brushed by an artist’s hand. I switched on the TV for some background noise while I got ready. One of the major networks was running its usual morning show with two perky presenters trying their best to jolly viewers along through their morning rituals. On this occasion, one was engaged in an in-depth discussion about children’s birthday parties and how much to spend on goodie bags – enough to please the masses, but not enough to require a small bank loan. Clearly, he’d been stingy and was hoping his co-presenter would defend him. She did not. Between this high-level debate came updates about the 80th anniversary of VE Day in the United Kingdom and something about the US President saying or doing something stupid. Moments later, the conversation was back to arguing about whether glitter was appropriate. Clearly this was quality morning television at its finest.
After ten minutes of this enlightening broadcast, I went in search of something more uplifting. I was heading for a few beaches on Dunedin’s northern coast, but on the way, the sky burst into a fiery sunrise over the harbour. I stopped at a nearby railway overbridge, where the tracks led straight toward the glowing horizon. The sky blazed hues of orange and yellow that seemed to dance on the still water below – the quiet coastal suburbs basking in the warm light of a new day.
I do love these red phone boxes. I stop and look at them every time I walk past. There used to be three of them, but I’ve no idea what happened to the third! There were once many more across the city until Telecom New Zealand took over the national telephone service and decided to modernise them by removing them completely.
Such was the public outcry that Telecom agreed to keep the red colour, however, they soon began replacing the old wooden boxes with new metal and plastic payphones. Personally, I think the former heads of Telecom should be made to track down and reinstall every single red phone box throughout the city.
While we’re at it, they should restore the train networks that once ran throughout the city and across the region. Further more, we could reverse the effects of quarrying at Blackhead, rebuild Cargill’s Castle, go back to firing a noonday cannon from Bell Hill, bring back the trams, re-establish all the student bars, revive the ferry steamer that used to run on Otago Harbour, and finally, rebuild every heritage building that’s been pulled down – brick by brick – starting with The Exchange Building that was demolished in the 1960s.
I had a good walk along the St Clair Esplanade and along the beach, enjoying the combination of a slow mid-morning amble and sun-splashed water, unsurprised that many had the same idea. On the way back to the car park, I passed the busy cafés and restaurants doing a brisk morning trade as people soaked up the spring sunshine outside the various buildings that line the sea front.
The newest of these establishments is a three-storey apartment and retail complex that opened earlier in the year. While the upper floors are apartments offering splendid sea views and the chance to watch the tops of people’s heads as they stroll past, the ground floor features a wine bar next door to an authentic artisan gelato shop. The whole complex gives the area a more complete, polished feel – especially since the section had sat empty since the old St Clair dairy was pulled down in 2001. The place was alive with people eating, drinking coffee, walking dogs, carrying surfboards, and generally carting every sort of thing one might take to the beach on the first day of a long holiday weekend.
The other month I went for a wander out to the Harrington Point gun emplacements on the Otago Peninsula, one of those places you always mean to explore properly but never quite get around to. I’d driven the long, winding road past the familiar waterside spots of Macandrew Bay, Broad Bay and Portobello, through Ōtākou and on to Taiaroa Head, before parking my car as carefully as possible at Harrington Point.
The site itself was first constructed in the late 1880s, when the good people of Dunedin were convinced the Russian Empire was about to sail in and start something dreadful. The whole complex, observation posts, underground tunnels, magazines, engine rooms and all was built in earnest anticipation of a war that, of course, never came. Still, it must have made for excellent local gossip at the time.
That afternoon I wandered, tripped and scrambled my way around the remains, occasionally losing my footing and my sense of direction but never my curiosity. The incoming tide lapped at the rocks below the cliffs as I explored the old stairwells and passageways, hoping to stumble upon some long-forgotten relic. From one weathered doorway a narrow stairwell led deeper underground, connecting a warren of echoing tunnels and rusting fittings that once formed the nerve centre of Dunedin’s defences.
It’s an amazingly fun and oddly peaceful coastline, part history lesson, part playground with seabirds and seals forever close to hand, as if they, too, were keeping watch for something that might not arrive.
Looking up at those dark cliffs and their strange hexagonal pillars at Blackhead Beach, you get the feeling the earth here is older than time itself. And in a way, it is. The headland was born about ten million years ago, when the great Dunedin Volcano was still rumbling and lava was spilling into the sea. As it cooled, the molten rock cracked and shrank into perfect six-sided columns, nature’s own geometry lesson. The result is the striking formation known locally as the “Roman Baths,” a natural amphitheatre of basalt that looks as if it were carved by an ancient civilisation rather than made by chance.
Yet, long before geologists admired these pillars or quarry trucks began to rumble nearby, Māori knew this place by very different names Te Wai o Tinarau, “the waters of Tinarau,” and Makereatu, roughly translated as “to leave a seed.” The names alone hint at a deep connection with both sea and story. Tinarau/Tinirau, is a figure in Polynesian culture associated with the sea. To name this coastline after him suggests an understanding that went beyond simple geography, a recognition of the tides, the fish, and the life that springs from the sea.
Even the second name, Makereatu, has a poetry to it. A sense of something passed on, perhaps the way every wave that breaks here leaves behind a trace of the one before. It’s a reminder that places like Blackhead are layered not just in basalt, but in meaning. The rocks tell a tale written in lava; the names tell one spoken in generations. Both deserve to be read slowly.
About a century ago, when a group of local doctors were looking for a place to escape the hustle and bustle of Dunedin, they settled on a quiet stretch of sand and bush just north of Waitati. So, when they came across the seaside sections at Blueskin Bay, they quickly snapped them up, building simple holiday cottages where they could unwind, fish, and forget about the demands of daily life.
The area quickly became known as “Doctors Point” and the name stuck. The place quickly became a favourite weekend retreat for Dunedin’s professional elite. Over the years, parts of the land the doctors once owned were turned into public reserves, and the beach became a place for everyone to enjoy – families, walkers, and swimmers alike.
Today, Doctors Point is one of those beautiful, quietly historic corners of the coast that still carries its story in its name. Standing there at low tide, looking across to Purakaunui and the cliffs beyond, it’s not hard to imagine the doctors arriving by train or car, grateful to trade stethoscopes for fishing rods and a breath of fresh sea air. It’s even got some wonderful sea caves that are good for exploring.
There’s something delightful about Purakanui, tucked away behind Port Chalmers and Aramoana on Dunedin’s northern coast. On this walk, I stumbled upon a row of weathered boathouses perched above the turquoise water, each one painted a little differently, as if competing gently for attention. The stillness of the inlet, the reflection of the hills, and the smell of salt and pine made it one of those moments you want to bottle up and take home.
Purakanui feels like a hidden place, one that hasn’t changed much in decades. The boathouses lean slightly with age, but that only adds to their charm, they’ve stood through storms, tides, and time itself. The bush presses in close behind, and when the wind drops, the only sounds are the lap of water and the occasional bird cry from the bush.
It’s the kind of scene that reminds you why exploring the backroads around Dunedin is so rewarding.
I headed for the small village of Aramoana. It was here, in 1880, that Englishman Sir John Coode came up with a plan. To protect Otago Harbour’s entrance from silting, he decided to try and direct the tidal flow. His idea was simple: cleverly design two moles at the head of the harbour,one jutting out from Taiaroa Head and the other from Aramoana. However, due to some miscalculations with the budget, the Harbour Board only had the finances to complete the mole at Aramoana. Even then, it was built to only half the height of Sir John’s specifications, and by the 1920s storm damage had destroyed a large portion of it.
And speaking of Aramoana, here’s a fact for you. Eighty species of moths have been recorded on the Aramoana saltmarsh, and, further to that, the tidal flats there are the most important habitat for wading birds in Otago. While we’re on the subject of birds, when hoiho penguins (like the ones that live in the dunes near Keyhole Rock) go out to sea to feed, they travel up to fifteen kilometres from shore and down to depths of a hundred metres.
Yet we wouldn’t have all that if they’d gone ahead and built an aluminium smelter here in the mid-1970s. The idea, apparently, was to turn this quiet stretch of beach and dunes into an industrial complex of pipes, smoke, and humming machinery, a sort of “progress at any cost” scheme. Locals were, quite understandably, horrified. The thought of bulldozers trundling over sand where penguins nested didn’t exactly inspire confidence in the future of mankind. Protests were held, signs were painted, and Aramoana very nearly became a synonym for environmental heartbreak. Thank goodness Aramoana was saved.
If there’s one thing to be discovered at Observation Point in Port Chalmers, it’s the view. I know that might sound a little obvious, but it’s the very view that the famous New Zealand artist Ralph Hotere drew inspiration from – and it’s amazing! It’s not hard to see why he loved it so much, or why he fought so fiercely to keep it.
In the 1970s, Hotere bought a four-room cottage near Observation Point and turned it into his first studio, transforming it quite a bit along the way. When a near-derelict stable next door came up for sale, he was desperate to get hold of it. Not only were the stables rumoured to have once housed Captain Robert Scott’s ponies on their way to Antarctica, but they also offered stunning views right down Otago Harbour – and they did not disappoint.
Once settled, Hotere produced some of his most famous works there and was content enough until the early 1990s, when Port Otago moved to reclaim the land for a port extension. Logging exports to Japan were booming, and to keep up with demand, the port needed to expand its operations, which meant they needed Hotere’s land. The problem was, he wasn’t about to move. What followed was a long, very public dispute between the artist, local authorities, and the community. Eventually, though, Hotere reluctantly agreed to sell, allowing the port’s expansion project to finally go ahead.
When he gave in, many who had supported him felt a way of disappointment. No one’s entirely sure what prompted his change of mind, perhaps he simply grew tired of the fight and decided to move on. Whatever the reason, when the dust settled, Hotere donated the proceeds from the sale to the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship Trust Fund. Today, the Hotere Garden Oputae stands on the site where his studio once was. It opened in 2005, marking the return of four of his sculptures to the hill that inspired him for so many years.
From Port Chalmers, I headed down the harbour road towards Aramoana – stopping on the way to see an old Torpedo Boat base. Tucked away in Deborah Bay, just around the bend from Port Chalmers, is the curious relic of the remains of Torpedo Boat Mole. It sounds like something out of a war film, but in fact it’s a small stone jetty built in the 1880s when New Zealand decided it needed a navy, or at least a few boats that looked like one. At the time, fears of a Russian invasion ran high, and several “torpedo boats”, essentially small, fast launches armed with spar torpedoes were stationed around the country, ready to defend the ports – just in case!
Dunedin’s was based here in Deborah Bay, sheltered and out of sight from prying enemy eyes. The mole itself was built to provide a base and slipway for the vessel, though the threat of attack never came, and the torpedo boat saw little action beyond the occasional exercise. Today, the remains of the mole sit quietly at the water’s edge, stones weathered and covered with a few picnic tables that are a lovely spot on a fine day, a reminder of a time when the nation nervously watched the horizon for warships that never appeared.
Looking for a good Waterslide documentary? Checkout Class Action Park: a 2020 documentary film about the American amusement park Action Park, which was located in Vernon Township, New Jersey.
Daily Photo – The Joy of the Waterslide
I like to think the worlds first waterslide was invented on a fine, sunny day by two blokes on a particularly steep hillside. I imagine one, with a red, oil covered baseball cap and a large handlebar mustache whose name is something like, Hank, putting down his beer, turning to his friend Jerry, and saying: “Hey, here’s an idea. If we make a long steep ramp and shoot water down it really fast like, into that pool of water at the bottom, we might really have something. We could even sit in things and leave our fate up to gravity.” To which Jerry replies, “Yeah, we could invite our friends and charge people money!”
This random train of thought got me thinking that of course, not every waterslide adventure ends in fun and in my reading, I found some alarming statistics. In March last year, a study in Texas found that the most common water park injuries were slips and falls, traumatic brain injuries, spinal and neck injuries and near-drowning. Across the pond, our friends in the United Kingdom found in a similar study that more than half of injuries affected the face and head, 29% happened on landing, and 24% were caused by slipping. And here in New Zealand, in the year from 2021, we spent roughly $3 million treating injuries. Clearly, water slides are fun, though not entirely without risk – and not immune from acts of stupidity, like The Banzai Pipeline Stunt in California.
In June 1997, a group of graduating High School seniors were at Waterworld USA, location of the popular Banzai Pipeline water slide. On this occasion, ignoring both the lifeguard and park official warnings, the seniors attempted to pile over sixty people onto the one-person ride. The colossal, unexpected weight caused the elevated fiberglass to snap with a groaning collapse. The pipeline sheared apart, plunging the screaming, interlocked students three stories down onto the hard concrete deck below with over thirty severely injured.
Now, I have absolutely no idea who invented the world’s first waterslide, when it happened, or why, but my guess is they were American – and either extremely confident in their mathematical calculations or had been drinking a whole lot.
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Daily Photo – Burns House – a Kind of Mathematical Poetry
There’s something oddly beautiful about buildings like this, all rhythm and repetition, concrete and glass, each window framing a tiny world. From a distance, it looks almost like a giant puzzle, oddly precise and orderly with small irregularities, a curtain half drawn, a light left on or a reflection that doesn’t quite fit the pattern. That’s the charm of it. What was once just another office block now feels almost nostalgic. There’s a kind of mathematical poetry in its plainness. In fact, if you stare at it long enough – it almost becomes an optical illusion.
Daily Photo – Chicago Skyscrapers & Edwardian Elegances
In December 1909, when the first tenants moved into the New Zealand Express Company Building (now Consultancy House) in Dunedin, what excitement there must have been. People stopped in the street, craned their necks skyward, and gasped in awe at the imposing edifice stretching up towards the clouds. It was unlike anything the city had seen before. Here was an amalgam of Chicago skyscraper and Edwardian elegance at its very finest, seven storeys of groundbreaking architectural wonder.
The soaring colossus that had risen from the ground in Dunedin’s Bond Street in a little over two years was a triumph of modern engineering. To create such a towering structure took around 400 tonnes of steel, over 500,000 bricks, and approximately 1,000 cubic feet of Oamaru stone. Add to that the kauri and rimu timber for floors and doors, the pressed-metal ceilings imported from the United States, and the marble stairs and tiled entryways, and it’s easy to see why Dunedin was proud. It was the tallest building in the Southern Hemisphere, its view said to be unsurpassed anywhere else in the city, and its form of construction, as one newspaper noted, “had so far not yet been adopted anyway in the colonies.” This was one impressive building! Even more remarkable was the staggered occupation that took place upon opening, uncommon at the time, especially for large commercial buildings such as this. When the first tenants moved in towards the end of 1909, five of the seven storeys were complete, while work continued on the upper floors until final completion in 1910.
I mention this because the other day I happened to be near Consultancy House, not far from a new building recently opened in a style I like to call pointy and angular, a perfect example of what happens when architects are given a ruler, a lot of money, and far too much confidence. It looks like someone wrapped an office block in a giant, golden Venetian blind. No doubt it’ll take a team of highly paid specialists to fix it the moment a bird so much as sneezes on it. It’s not that I dislike the new four-storey, $45 million ACC Ōtepoti development, it’s just that I much prefer a little grand Victorian or Edwardian elegance, with an ornate façade in my buildings.
At its peak, Dunedin’s railway yards were incredibly busy. From the late 19th century through to about the 1950s, they were among the busiest in the country. The station wasn’t just a passenger hub; it was the operational centre for the entire Otago region. Hundreds of workers were employed in the yards, long trains loaded with wool, timber, livestock, coal, and manufactured goods constantly came and went, connecting Dunedin to the port at Port Chalmers and to inland towns as far as Invercargill and Central Otago. The smell of coal smoke, the clang of metal, and the hiss of steam were part of the city’s daily life with up to one hundred trains passing through the station each day at its peak.
Daily Photo – Boulder Beach on the Otago Peninsula
Earlier in the year, I took a walk down to Boulder Beach on the Otago Peninsula. The idea came to me one evening when, having a few days spare, I decided I would put it to good use and get in some physical exercise. This was at odds with my initial plan, which had been to lay on the couch and watch Major League Baseball, moving only to go to the toilet and gather more snacks that I would inevitably accumulate in a large pile in front me! So, after a heated debate with myself, I eventually settled on the walk and the next morning I headed out the door with an eagerness in my step, a spirited sense of adventure, and a bag full with camera equipment.
Once upon a time, access to Boulder Beach was possible via a well-maintained and signposted track that led down to the beach. Along the way, walking tracks branched off through the dunes and up over the nearby hills. You could spend an entire day exploring them, and never walk the same track twice. Now, all those paths are a distant memory, and for good reason – it is a protected wildlife area. You see, it is often visited by fur seals and sea lions, and is a favoured nesting spot for yellow-eyed penguins. In fact, the beach is so popular with these shy, nesting birds that the track is closed to the public from November to February during the breeding season.
I walked down to the beach. The farm road was longer and steeper than I remembered, and the nearby sand dunes had collapsed, resulting in an unexpected excursion through newly formed valleys, overgrown and heavy with dune. Reaching the bottom of the hill, I pushed my way through dense bushes tangled with vines. Every so often, the path would disappear—only to reappear moments later.
Eventually, after much swearing, I stumbled upon the isolated, wild, windswept beach. Golden dunes spilled to the shoreline, while large mounds of dark, smooth stones stretched along the beach and into the distance. The air was rich with salt, and the rhythm of waves rolling beneath the endless blue sky. Quiet, peaceful, and serene.
If there’s one thing to be discovered at Observation Point in Port Chalmers, it’s the view. I know that might sound a little obvious, but it’s the very view that the famous New Zealand artist Ralph Hotere drew inspiration from – and it’s amazing! It’s not hard to see why he loved it so much, or why he fought so fiercely to keep it.
In the 1970s, Hotere bought a four-room cottage near Observation Point and turned it into his first studio, transforming it quite a bit along the way. When a near-derelict stable next door came up for sale, he was desperate to get hold of it. Not only were the stables rumoured to have once housed Captain Robert Scott’s ponies on their way to Antarctica, but they also offered stunning views right down Otago Harbour – and they did not disappoint.
Once settled, Hotere produced some of his most famous works there and was content enough until the early 1990s, when Port Otago moved to reclaim the land for a port extension. Logging exports to Japan were booming, and to keep up with demand, the port needed to expand its operations, which meant they needed Hotere’s land. The problem was, he wasn’t about to move. What followed was a long, very public dispute between the artist, local authorities, and the community. Eventually, though, Hotere reluctantly agreed to sell, allowing the port’s expansion project to finally go ahead.
When he gave in, many who had supported him felt a way of disappointment. No one’s entirely sure what prompted his change of mind, perhaps he simply grew tired of the fight and decided to move on. Whatever the reason, when the dust settled, Hotere donated the proceeds from the sale to the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship Trust Fund. Today, the Hotere Garden Oputae stands on the site where his studio once was. It opened in 2005, marking the return of four of his sculptures to the hill that inspired him for so many years.
Lovingly restored over a number of years, the old two room stone building appeared in superb condition on the outside and I was delighted to find both rooms unlocked so visitors like myself could have a poke around. The first room I went into contained old leather and heavy dark metal harness gear hanging from the walls, not far from where these were framed pictures that told the story of the cottage. The most prominent feature was an old large, old fireplace, oven, or forge made of stone and built-in to the wall beneath the chimney in the corner of the room.
The second room was much the same, bare but for a few horse shoes hanging on the far wall from the door. The floor closest to the door was concrete and moving further back, the floor transitioned to packed earth that extended to the base of the walls. Thoughtfully, a hole had been cut in the wall so you could peer between rooms which proved to be extremely useful for taking photos. I walked back and forth between rooms for a while. I stood and looked around each room and one thing bothered me. For the life of me I couldn’t figure out how they’d managed to find the room to excavate underneath the to make room for an illegal whisky distillery that was rumoured to be hidden under the floorboards. Not only that, I wouldn’t know where to start! Either way, it was a very impressive effort, and rather clever.
I drove through heavy mid-morning rain. Here and there, the road dipped into large muddy puddles that I bounced in and out of, spraying water and loose gravel across the car as I did so. Berwick Forest is only a forty-minute drive from Dunedin, and I’d been there on an errand which also provided the opportunity to go on a longer drive, away from the usual motorways, streets, and footpaths that I frequent over the course of a typical week.
Earlier that morning I had passed through small rural settlements with names such as Outram, Woodside Glen, and Berwick. I had it in mind to take a different route home, just to keep things interesting and the mind active. The surrounding countryside gradually became more hilly and disappeared into thick white clouds. Large pools of water were forming into new streams that cut through paddocks and ran down across the road. It had been years since I’d driven this particular road, so I spent the time looking out the car window as I bounced along, identifying possible photographic subjects with a sense of joy and intrigue. Every so often being reminded that I was in charge of a 1,600 kg (1.6 tonnes) motor vehicle, as a stone ricocheted off the windscreen.
At some point, between splashes of water and sprays of stones, I came across one of those road signs that indicate places of interest or historical significance. This one read: “McDonald’s Historic Cottage 2 km.” I thought that sounded like a nice place to drive past, and it was.
I found it thanks to a large blue sign hanging from a fence that told me the wee stone cottage was built in 1860 by the McDonald family. The building was a nice place – small, quaint, but remarkably pleasant for a two-room stone cottage sitting on somebody’s front lawn. Its approximate area being 33 m² (I did the math). Once a two-room dairy and bakery, it also had an illegal whisky distillery hidden under the floorboards.
A bit of a change in direction today and a break from the usual travelogue …
Daily Photo – Lan Yuan
Why This “Quiet” Photo Was a Technical Battle
Every now and then, you take a photo that looks like it should be the easiest thing in the world. It’s a beautiful scene, some tranquil garden, maybe, or a quiet street. You look at the raw file (that top image, the one with all the orange marks) and think, lovely. You look at the final image (the bottom one), and you think, perfect.
But what’s the distance between lovely and perfect? That’s where the work sits. And in a photo like this, that work is all down to one of the most stubborn issues a photographer faces when shooting architecture: converging verticals.
The Problem with the Real World
The buildings in this shot that surround the Dunedin Chinese Gardens are meant to stand upright, proud, and square. But because of the lens, the height and the angle the camera lens did what it does best: it lied.
If you look closely at the raw file, you can see how those vertical lines, the edges of the walls, the pillars, the windows are all leaning into the centre. They look like they’re about to fall over, or maybe they just had a long night. It’s that classic “keystone” effect, and it immediately breaks the serene feeling of the place.
Now, this isn’t just one building. This is a complex arrangement of walls and corners, all at slightly different distances and angles. It’s a technical nightmare in the editing suite because correcting one set of lines perfectly often makes the adjacent set of lines look completely warped. It’s like trying to untangle one knot on a fishing line only to find you’ve created three more.
The Grunt Work in the Post-Processing Darkroom
There’s no magic button for this. Getting from that leaning, slightly chaotic raw file to the balanced, final image was a process of very fine adjustments, the kind that requires a cup of coffee and a lot of quiet concentration.
I had to put on my architect’s hat and methodically tackle the geometry:
Transform Tool, Not Magic: This involved manually adjusting the perspective and vertical guides both Lightroom and Photoshop. I wasn’t just pulling a slider; I was nudging it, checking the highlighted lines (the ones I’ve marked in orange), nudging again, checking the opposite side, and then nudging again until the eye accepted the view as naturally straight.
Fighting the Stretch: When you correct converging lines, you stretch the image. You have to be mindful that the proportions of the elements, the windows, the roof overhangs don’t become too tall or too thin. It’s a constant trade-off between straight lines and believable shapes.
The Final Layers: Only once the structure was sound and once the buildings looked like they were firmly anchored and not listing like a rusty ship could I move on to the easier, more enjoyable work of bringing the whole scene to life.
In the end, what looks like a simple, polished photograph is really a technical triumph over the lens’s distortions. It’s proof that sometimes, the most peaceful scenes are the ones that demand the most time and technical fussing to get right.
It’s that quiet satisfaction, the one you get from fixing a complex problem without leaving a trace of the effort, that makes the whole process worthwhile. It’s also a reminder to work slowly, and look carefully.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Has anyone else had a deceptively difficult image like this? Share your perspective battles below.
Before I left home on this trip, I’d decided that when I returned, it would be an ideal opportunity to look at Dunedin from a different perspective, to view the city as a tourist might. So, when the hills of the peninsula eventually came into view, with the harbour stretching out into the distance and the city centre neatly tucked on the far shore, I paused to breathe in the fresh, salty sea air and the familiar, distinctive coastline. I quickly discovered that I’d set myself an impossible task – I was far too invested. You see, having called Dunedin home for 98% of my life, I couldn’t look at it any other way. It was home.
Still, not wanting to give up completely on the task I’d set myself, I had a flip through a few well-known travel guides to gain a foreigner’s perspective, an honest attempt to see the place through a different set of eyes, if you will. Eventually, after much reading (and let’s be honest here, most travel guides are pretty dull) and a few false starts, I was able to cobble together some kind of semi-coherent consensus. The overall opinion seemed to be that Dunedin is a place where history, creativity, and nature meet. With its heritage architecture, lively arts scene, and easily accessible wilderness, it comes across as charming, quirky, and environmentally blessed. Added to which Dunedin is a UNESCO City of Literature, and in the heart of the Octagon you can even follow a literacy walk, stopping at plaques commemorating writers of note and literary milestones.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against these publications; they are, in fact, very useful. I’ve even used one myself in a moment of poor judgement and indecision. It’s just that you could easily apply that description to almost any major city in the world – some minor cities as well, come to think of it. What I wanted was something unique, something you couldn’t say about any other city in the world. Then, just when I was about to give up, just when I was thinking Dunedin would fall into the vast well of nondescript cities, I happened to stumble across notable New Zealand poet Peter Olds and a quote that I absolutely love when he so eloquently said: “I fell flat on my face, drunk in the Octagon: right on top of a plaque with my name on.” There, in that single unvarnished sentence, Dunedin is captured quite beautifully.
I left Brighton heading for Dunedin. I’d decided to take the Southern Scenic Route, a 610-kilometre roading network that connects Queenstown, Fiordland, and Dunedin via The Catlins, Invercargill, and Bluff. Created in the 1980s as a way to boost tourism, the drive gives you an entirely new perspective on New Zealand and the joys that can be found along its coastline.
I took a section of the Southern Scenic Route now, as I approached the city of Dunedin. Having left the township of Brighton and passed the Kaikorai Lagoon, I turned right onto a stretch of road known as Blackhead. The name comes from the headland, a mass of dark volcanic basalt formed by the Dunedin volcanic field some 10 million years ago. This is a wonderful and distinctive part of Dunedin’s coastline, with beaches well known for their surf, a steadily returning sea lion population, historic walking tracks, and a hidden cove tied to Dunedin’s earliest days.
I drove along Blackhead Road and paused to breathe in the fresh, salty sea air as I looked out over the beach. Then I carried on, climbing over the hill into the suburbs of Corstorphine and St Clair. Ahead of me, Dunedin slowly came into view, the harbour, the peninsula, the eastern coastline, and the central city all unfolding in front of me. It was good to be home.
When I’m not listening to Spotify or Podcast, then I’m on audible listening to books. Audible is amazing and it really is mindboggling how many titles are on there! You can find it here: https://www.audible.com/ep/audiobooks
Daily Photo – Afternoon wandering in Dunedin
The other week, I was wandering through central Dunedin late on a sunny winter’s afternoon. There was some crazy afternoon light hanging over the city, and not much traffic, which made a nice change, so I had plenty of time to line up the shots I wanted. In fact, to get a bit of elevation in this image, I had to stand on a narrow stone wall, which required a decent balancing act. If I’d fallen forwarded, I’d have toppled over a metal rail and spilled out all over the street. Fortunately, back in the day when the church was constructed, they made things pretty solid, and wide!
Titanic – Ship of Dreams: This is currently my favourite podcast. Over 14 eposides you follow the ship’s journey from Belfast across the Atlantic, through to the tragic collision with the iceberg and after. Spoiler alert, the shipsinks! Not only do you hear amazing stories from victims and survivors, but you discover how the extraordinary conditions on the ocean that night only added to the confusion. You can find it here: https://www.noiser.com/titanic-ship-of-dreams
Daily Photo – Dusk on a winters evening
So I’ve started another video project featuring Dunedin and lots of my images. It’s been rattling around inside my head for a while and it’s about time I did something about it. Some of the images are recent while others come from the last two to five years so it’s a bit of a mixed bag. Unfortunately, it’s not the type of project that’ll be finished quickly, but I can share with you an image that’s making the final cut – dusk in Dunedin on a winter eveing.
Alec Soth is a well-known American photographer from Minneapolis, who is recognised for his large-format, documentary-style work that captures life in the American Midwest. In a series called Room 303: Alec Soth’s Visions of Venice, he shot a series of images from Hotel Danieli in Venice, inspired by early color images by fellow photographers Dennis Stock and Erich Hartmann. It’s well worth a look. Room 303: Alec Soth’s Visions of Venice
Daily Photo – Life on Mars?
Lightroom presets have been around for a long time now. In fact, since 19th February, 2007 (I looked it up!) with the re-release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 1. The re-release of Lightroom gave users the ability to save and apply presets when editing photos. The saved settings could then be applied to other images. Now, 18 years later they are still as much fun to play around with as they ever were. I’ve got loads of presets saved in my version of Lightroom, all with weird and wonderful names. This photo was edited with a preset called ‘Life on Mars?’
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