machel rargaret: NATURAL HABITAT - my introduction to auckland city

Don’t fall for American English translations, unless you want to.

sky tower, 2012

I must have taken photos on most days of my whole life by this point. Every day I go back far far in to the earlier months, and I have a fond reminiscence of the particular day when I took the photo. Then I make the colors feel like I do. How sweaty I was in February, or how warm I was in April, for example. I like to do that every day. I use a Nikon D90 with Lomography lenses (mostly). I like the way the light bounces off the plastic. Sometimes I edit, sometimes I don't.

Colors are like musical notes, they can be happy or sad. I find every time of year has a different colored sky. This knowledge comes from taking photos of clouds. With my extensive collection I can play the Autumn sky for effect. You will hear me every Autumn say, “you never see a sky like this ANY time except Autumn!” That is when I take photos of the sky for hours a day. Especially after lunch time. Because the sky reacts to the sun’s light at that time, it changes color every few seconds. It makes me feel a certain way, like MJ, and I try to play the colors in that way. I don’t even have a favorite color, let’s be honest.

So you can feel through colors what it’s like to live in Auckland in Autumn, with highs of 23°C. To live in temperatures of 14.7^°Cin the middle of winter.

Or you could feel any number of things depending on what I want to say that day. It is colder in Queenstown. I think you can see that in the sky. Just after being in 1^°Cweather for 3 days, I feel like I’m in a sauna, coming back to Auckland. The sky here is closer to the ground. Even though you’re standing around the clouds on top of mountains in the fresh air, the sky is really far away.

Not only the landscape, but the people. I am a person of a culturally diverse city. I am not belonging to any culture but the one of Auckland City. I am not belonging to Irish culture, like my parents are. I am loosely tied to it, understanding of it, but not belonging to it. I am not belonging to Maori culture like a lot of my friends are. I am influenced by it, but I am not belonging to it. I am only part of the culture here, and now, living and breathing, in Auckland City.

The community here is not perfect, but it supports me enough that I can (almost) live off self-taught skills and art. The appreciation for DIY and Kiwi artists in Auckland is very strong. If only the economy were as strong!

This is all about Auckland, and the way the sun touches it. And clouds water it. And water clouds it. And we live in it. This is a documentation of Auckland culture and scenery, as enjoyed/ perceived by me. I hope that one day, my images of Auckland will be all over Auckland.