I am an easy mark for any scene bathed in dappled light. So, too, for Gothic Revival church architecture.

To have found, while on an urban walk with my grandson, the St Patrick’s Cathedral awash with light & shadow from late afternoon illumination was a splendid circumstance. What I could not have expected was to also find a holographic-like effect on the church’s gabled roof.

Let’s unpack the visual effect. The roof line is bedecked with six gabled dormer windows. I believe the architectural term for the window on this Gothic Revival building is a lucarne. A properly trained architectural historian will prove me wrong, again.

Over the years hard rains have weathered the roof tiles unevenly in perfectly vertical trails downward from either edge of each diminutive window. As a consequence, the sharply angled light of late afternoon may create the ephemeral effect of pairs of the columns — faux pilasters— superimposed underneath each of the six gabled dormer windows, as illustrated in today’s image.

The overall visual effect was intoxicating.

Installed in stages from 1913 to 1923 and refurbished in recent years with LED lighting, the 37 ornamental street lamps along the port side of Quay Street are known collectively as Auckland’s Red Fence.

The array of ornamental street lamps are a distinctive feature of Quay Street. They are especially stunning at night, as my photograph from a previous post illustrates:

This is why, as often as is possible, one should time a photographic walk in anticipation of the golden hour.

Vulcan Lane is a pedestrian-only thoroughfare that wends its way eastward from Queen Street, crosses High Street and ends its journey at O’Connell Street. Other lanes or diminutive streets in Auckland Central, some pedestrians-only and others with limited one-way car traffic patterns, include Fort, Snickel, Durham, Imperial and Bacons. All share an old-world charm, characterised by distinctive human-scale architecture, boutique retail shops and atmospheric cafes.

Heritage New Zealand offers an informative narrative of Vulcan Lane’s history as a commercial and social destination within Auckland Central.

One section of the narrative that I found especially noteworthy reads as follows:

In the 1920’s the lane was widened by about 15ft on the south side, and new commercial buildings were being erected in the area. Any new buildings constructed in the lane had to conform with the Council’s requirements and hence the lane adopted a wider more spacious and sunlit appearance. 1

Few areas of public policy have taken more hits by critics on the left- and right-side of the political fence than zoning & planning requirements. The problems are real, but complex, and consequential. However, one need only walk the length of Vulcan Lane to conclude that the judicious application of zoning and design frameworks to preserve the historically significant character of modest areas of a city can be enormously beneficial to the life of a city — to our liveability in it and to our understanding of its changing character, both continuous and adaptive, over time.

The particular strength and vitality of the weekly Wynyard Quarter night markets is that the weekend events attract families that could not otherwise afford a dinner outing. The night market culinary offerings are varied, tasty and moderately priced.

Parents also know that the Silo Park playground and neighbouring public spaces are fun and safe. There is a palpable sense of shared responsibility in Wynyard Quarter -- we watch-out for one another, residents and visitors alike.

Time wandering amongst the crowds at my precinct’s weekend night markets is a restorative tonic for me.

There are layers of biography and explanatory text associated with this image.

Let’s start with the ethics of candid street photography. Is a candid street photograph, one taken without the knowledge or permission of the subject, a form of theft or at least an invasion of personal space? I have not fully formed an answer to that question and, in not doing so, I have resolved to forego any commercial profit from this stealthy practice. I won’t sell a print of a person from whom I have neither obtained permission nor offered compensation. And my Substack, by intent, was never meant to be a commercial endeavour.

As to the question of why I was attracted to his profile, photographically speaking, my answer is rather subjective and speculative. I am fascinated by how people present themselves in public places - from styles of dress and bodily or jewelled ornamentation to facial expressions and postures of engagement or withdrawal.

In the instance of this bus rider, I was keenly interested in the intensity of his facial expression; and therein lies the speculative rub. Perhaps it is the learned habit of someone who needs to say ‘don’t mess with me.’ Or the assumed expression of someone lost in deep thought. Lastly, and more simply, it could be the countenance of someone grateful for a moment’s respite on a bus.

I know this much: I love the endless trail of his beard.

Looking up, down and behind are critical photographic prompts. In the instance of this entry, down and behind were the operative impulses.

Inspired by a video presented at the YouTube channel Photographic Inspiration, I took a walk along a familiar path in Wynyard Quarter. The practice frame for this outing was to maintain the discipline of looking up, down and behind. The mantra served me well.

Looking down rather than straight ahead allowed me to spot a storm sewer grating. The strong repeating pattern of geometric rectangles served as contrasting background for the dominant figure of the red iron valve, itself encased within a concentric circle. As my wife remarked when she saw the image: “It is something my husband would notice and consider visually curious.” The cement casing of the storm sewer on which the grating was placed punctuated the interplay of geometries.

Farther on, I walked behind a structure at one end of the Jellicoe Street carpark, which revealed another odd treasure. Someone had taken the time to paint a piece of corrugated siding that lined one edge of a raised street garden. Capturing the photograph with a wide-open aperture at close proximity ensured that the siding and flowers, with their dominant red and delicate yellow hues, would attract the eye of viewer. The visual wash of the gauzy background, the artistic consequence of a shallow depth of field, added a nice finishing touch to the photographic elements of the composition.

I was reminded of an old joke shared amongst architects:

“How do you know that there’s an architecture convention taking place in town?

Everyone in a crush of pedestrians is looking up.”

From a compositional perspective, I love this photograph for its echo of visual triangles - in the first instance, the triangle formed by the pair of dog leashes and dog bodies at its base; and in the second instance: the bodily outlines of the father and son, completed by the lower-frame edge of the cart behind the father.

Of course, the cascade of tenderness — from father to son, from son to dog — is the visual story.

A current exhibit at the Auckland Art Gallery is a show of contemporary Chinese art across much of visual arts media from painting, photography and sculpture to video and mixed media installations. The exhibition examines how rapid urbanisation, globalisation and shifting social values have reshaped artistic practice.

The gallery’s atrium foyer hosts a large-scale stone sculpture — today’s photograph — which combines a Buddhist figure representative of China’s Tianlongshan grottoes with the form of the Greek sculpture Winged Victory of Samothrace.

In terms of scale, curator Hutch Wilco describes it as a 7-metre-high, 3-tonne carved stone sculpture that towers in the atrium foyer — it was so large it had to be jimmied through the back doors with mere inches to spare.

The work fuses two of the supreme icons of Eastern and Western artistic tradition — the Winged Victory representing the apex of ancient Greek achievement and the Bodhisattva representing the highest spiritual ideal of Buddhist civilisation. By joining them head-to-head (literally — the Buddha figure is inverted and grafted at the neck of the Winged Victory), Xu Zhen stages a collision between two distinct cosmologies, neither of which can claim primacy over the other.

Are they sentinels, staunchly charged
with protecting the library from a horde
of book-burning barbarians,
or themselves that marauding army
on the adavnce?

The bushes either way appear ominous.

In relief, the library remains resolute,
a monument that captures fierce symmetry in stone -
textured, proportioned and exacting.

An expression of implacable beauty.

My eye was drawn first to the windows. The geometric designs of the window metalwork and stacked window arches communicate an Art Deco sensibility. I see elegant and complex refinements - of shapes within shapes repeated from one window to the next but in each instance conceived in a novel rectalinear pattern.

The shadows cast by the windswept tree danced in dappled light on the building facade.

I waited patiently as the three sidewalk pedestrians moved into place.

The Pullman footprint at the corner of Waterloo Crescent and Princes Street in Auckland Central is actually two footprints. The Pullman Hotel fronts along the Waterloo Crescent thouroghfare. In my opinion, the hotel’s exterior is dull and unadorned compared to the elegance of the hotel’s interiors. The interiors are richly appointed.

Astride the Princes Street corridor of the complex are the Pullman Residences, two and three bedroom apartments available for short- and long-stay accomodations. The Princes Street facade, a detail of which is pictured here, is quite distinctive.

The cantilevered porches and roof line have been designed to express an uncluttered but maximal visual statement. The white overlapping porches produce strong contrasts of light and shadow - a dramatic interplay of tonal extremes which makes for a powerful black & white photograph.

The visual impact of the facade is further heightended by the interplay of varied lengths in the porch forms - from long and bevelled lengths on the left that approximate rectilinear shapes to porch length of subtle but increasingly shortened length as the eye moves from left to right. The irregular patterns propel the visual movement of the facade.

The capstone design element, which for me accentuates the impression that the segments are floating, is the repeating pattern of angled edges on the left-hand side of each smaller porch segment. As a design conseqence, the porch enclosures are rendered as irregular quadrilaterals. That syncopated rhythm of irregular porch forms creates a dynamic tension, an imbalance within the visual plane of the facade that further enhances the vibrant impression of movement and suspension.

Lastly, an echo of cantilevered forms can be seen in the roof line. The seductive curve of each roof segment is lovely. Again we see an interplay, and resulting tension, of opposites - the straight line that forms the left-edge of each roof segment from which a delicate curvilinear portion extends and defines the shape.

The Pullman Residences facade is a refined example of visually stunning architectural design.

For much of our 47 years together my wife and I have had a satisfying division of labour. Randolph enjoys cooking, and she is a superb chef. She also loathes the chore of dinner clean-up. In a moment of contrite confession she has admitted that, in the course of meal preparation, her habit of using every sauce pan — every kitchen utensil no matter how well hidden from reach — is a baked-in culinary reflex. Her dread of facing the kitchen carnage of an impeccably prepared meal is palpable. Fair enough, the dude does the dishes.

Not to worry . . . I not only enjoy immensely her culinary creations, I also relish the time of quiet reverie or splashes of jazz music via AirPods that attend the Sisyphian task of post-feast kicthen restoration.

I am also the partner who sets the dinner table, an easy task when place settings are limited to two persons, but the chore is within my dinnertime remit. Therefore, I was especially attentive when I saw the gentleman featured in today’s photograph begin to set his table, a reclusive edge of a pedestrian lane that connects Queen and High Streets. His Fanta drink marked one edge of his table, followed by the makings of his mains - a collection of fast food favourtites - gingerly placed in other quadrants.

With equal alacrity he set himself on the hard sidewalk, surveyed his dinner victuals and began to eat with relentless intensity what was likely his sole rations of the day.

New Zealand was the first self-governing country to grant women the right to vote in national elections. It did so by act of parliament in 1893.

Khartoum Place in Auckland Central memorialises this momentous moment in the worldwide suffrage movement, which took root in the 19th century, to expand the Enlightenment ideal of political equality by extending full political agency to New Zealand women.

A different form of movement — a visual movement — capivated me as I approached the plaza from the Auckland Art Gallery. I had been reflecting on my study of an Hungarian born photographer, Gyula Halász, who as an expatriate living in Paris produced a portfolio of stunning black & white photographs of Paris at night and published them under the pseudonym Brassaï.

Brassaï’s oeuvre is hauntingly beautiful, each print an evocative play of form, line and light. The finest black & white photographs — think of Ansel Adam’s images — exploit the full range of the gray scale, from pure black to pure white. Brassaï’s photographs are marked by spectacular washes of light, shadow and granular texture, all impeccably composed.

If imitation is a high form of flattery, then my humble attempt here should be understood to be a modest but sincere nod to Brassaï’s photographic legacy.

Storefront windows are the visual business cards for retail shops. At their best streetside windows extend seductive invitations to linger, to consider and ultimately to be drawn within.

The cafe window at the Addis Cafe and Ethiopian Restaurant plays on the Kiwi addiction to excellent, if not also exotic, coffee. The demitasse coffee cup signals just that: the coffee will be small-portioned but full bodied. The message is brilliant: complex and layered flavours are best sipped slowly, are best savoured.

The display of the restaurant menu on the plate glass is prosaic but clever. It announces that the party for the senses extends beyond a prized liquid to Ethiopian spiced meats and vegetarian offerings.

A lovely Sunday afternoon put me in the mood for a train ride and a photography walkabout. I elected to travel by rail to Kingsland, an Auckland suburb that is home to Eden Park, New Zealand’s national stadium. Football (soccer) and rugby teams, including sell-out crowds for the All Blacks, play matches at Eden Park.

An elaborate stairway superstructure routes passengers from the train station platform to city street. At the apex of the stairway, I spotted a potential photograph in the alley below.

The side alley of a building, which is host to the Taiko Japanese Restaurant, contained what one might expect of an urban alley: an HVAC unit mounted on the exterior wall; the makeshift placement of an exhaust vent in a window pane with cluttered window ledge; various pipes and electrical conduits; and an ageing sidewalk.

The ornamental surprise, which alley ways often conceal to the less curious and observant pedestrian, included a pair of handsomely stencilled windows (perhaps depicting slender bamboo trees) and a very attractive potted bonsai tree - fixtures befitting of a Japanese restaurant.

While finding the proper angle from which to capture the image was difficult — there were numerous obstacles that encumbered my view — I am reasonably satisfied with the photographic outcome.

The bungalow is a marvel of humble charm. While plain yet admirably efficient in both interior and exterior design, the bungalow displays puncutated elements of elegant character.

The front veranda (or more modestly the front porch) may best claim that combination of functional brilliance and elaborate craft aesthetic. From a functional perspective, the overhang of the street-facing veranda shades the interior from the voracity of the summer sun and defines the lineaments of a front porch that encouarges a bungalow’s residents to sit outside in shaded comfort to enjoy the views of front yard and sidewalk beyond.

Furthermore, the veranda includes horizontal trim board and vertical posts that beg for artistic embellishment, and the Kiwi bungalow stands out in this regard. Borrowing from the Arts & Crafts style, the trim board and posts are adorned with the intricate craftsmanship, often referred to as lacework, of fretwork and brackets. Those elegant features of design and craft aethetic are handsomely illustrated in today’s photograph.

A recent photography walk took me the length of Richmond Road from Grey Lynn to Ponsonby, two of Auckland’s upscale suburbs. I saw lovely examples of villas and bungalows, the styles of residential architecture that typified the housing stock built in Auckland’s suburbs from the late 19th century and across the early decades of the 20th century.

The photograph included in today’s post was amongst my most favoured examples of villa architecture that I spotted during my walk. I am not a sufficiently skilled architectural historian to write with assured confidence, but to my eye the villa depicted here illustrates a transitional period as architects borrowed from established forms but experimented with novel architectural expressions.

I believe that the incorporation of an oriel window within the front facade was not a comnon architectural element of the villa style. It may have been a gesture by the architect to Victorian arts & crafts architecture from which the New Zealand villa style emerged. The elaborate gingerbread trim incorporated within the porch valance and sprandrels are also shared features between the Victorian arts & crafts and villa styles.

On balance, however, the villa and bungalow styles of residential architecture were more modest in size and plain in detail than their antecedents, offering an attractive but less expensive alternative for a burgeoning middle class population that would settle in Auckland’s expanding suburbs in post-World War I New Zealand. The California bungalow provided the perfect template from which to build and innovate.

One final observation: the profusion of flowers in the front yard, in lieu of expansive grassy lawn, is to my way of thinking quite brilliant. It is as if visitors to the home were being invited to walk along a bridal path of well-wishers on their way to the front door of the home.

I found in the front yard of a nearby home further evidence of the neighbourhood’s amiability, as expressed through its street-side gardens. An exquisite Hibiscus flower poked its head out to greet me as I walked by.

The close companion of my SubStack blog will know that I return my focus regularly to my home precinct to photograph Wynyard Quarter, where my wife and I have lived for the past four years. I have been incurably bewitched by the magical ambiance of our seaside neighbourhood.

Wynyard Quarter was conceived as the Western Reclamation, a project to reclaim the tidal shoreline of the Waitematā Harbour at the western-most edge of Auckland Harbour. The marvel of the reclamation project is further dramatised by the adaptive reuse or re-purposing of utilitarian artefacts found throughout the precinct that chronicle the area’s maritime and industrial histories as well as extend each artefact’s utility in aesthetically pleasing manner.

Within the latter category of industrial activity sits a collection of cement silos located within the area of Wynyard Quarter known as Silo Park. It is here in Silo Park that adaptive reuse shines.

Today’s entry features a photograph of several sculptures by architect and sculptor Logan Bow. The display sits at one of the exterior windows of Silo 6, a collection of six tightly compacted cement silos of Silo Park that have been converted into art studio & exhibition space.

Interior arched doorways have been cut in silo walls to create passageways that permit tentative movement amongst the six silos, ensuring that the individual studios can be both isolated and cautiously discovered. Ceilings soar to heights of 35 metres, greatly extenuating the palpable sensations of mystery, enchantment and cavernous disorientation.

Randolph and I plan to attend an upcoming art show at Silo 6, and I will attempt to capture with photographs the alluring charm of the exhibition venue.

I ate once at Coco’s Cantina and was not favourably impressed with the food. That said, the restaurant has a cult following, so my opinion may matter little.

I am impressed with the cantina’s attention to aesthetic detail that makes for a great K Road vibe. That sensibility begins with the presentation of its front facade. In a previous entry, I attempted to capture that feel, beginning with the establishment’s bright orange front door.

On the ocassion of the current blog entry, I focused on two impressions of the cantina’s interior as seen through a plate glass window on the left and an opened passageway on the right.

A saintly depiction in stained glass of the Australian musician Nick Cave sits within the restaurant some distance from the front window. The reflctive distortion of the exterior light against the window, however, makes it appear that the stained glass mural is superimposed eerily on the surface of the glass. The art work anchors the bohemian mood of the interior, but — from the outside — it exudes an other-worldly radiance.

The view through open passageway is equally ethereal and again due largely to lighting, although in this instance the chimerical feel is the result of rather dim lighting. My attempt in post-processing to illuminate the interior rendered the patrons in ghostly relief.

I think my photograph is a quirky nod to the restaurant’s ‘left of cool’ vibe.