Fotoeins Fotografie

location bifurcation, place vs. home

Posts from the ‘MyRTW’ category

My around the world journey: Dec 2011-Jan 2013

Wellington waterfront, Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Te Papa, Wellington, New Zealand, Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa, fotoeins.com

10 Capital Cities

Above/featured: Waterfront and Te Papa: Wellington, New Zealand – 12 Oct 2010 (450D).

Two definitions for the noun “capital (city)” are:

1. the city or town functioning as the seat of government and administrative centre for country or region.
2. with modifier, a place associated more than any other with a specified activity or product; e.g., fashion capital of the world.

I’ll go with the first definition. With almost 70% of this planet’s land mass in the northern hemisphere, you’d be forgiven in subscribing to a selection bias for capital cities primarily north of the equator. I was born in the north, but I also spent a good chunk of the last two decades in the south; so, I’ve chosen here 5 capital cities in each of the northern and southern hemispheres.

( Click here for images and more )

From an RTW: Places 1st and Once

Featured: Akaroa, New Zealand – 16 July 2012.

I am a Million Miler with American Airlines with an accumulated total of over 1.2 million air-miles flown. Many miles of travel have gotten me thinking about all the places where I’ve had the great fortune of living and visiting. During my year-long ’round-the-world’ (RTW) in 2012, my frequent-flyer standing allowed me to get affordable convenient flights within the U.S. and to use business-class lounges with Oneworld partner airlines elsewhere.

I visited these places for the first time: San Miguel de Allende in México; Nassau in the Bahamas; Mekong River Delta in Vietnam; Singapore; New Zealand’s South Island; Adelaide, Canberra, and Perth in Australia; Cape Town in South Africa; Edinburgh in Scotland; and Cuxhaven in Germany. I’ve yet to return to these locations, but the following visuals remind me why I want to go back.

( Click here for images and more )

Pacific Ocean, Hilton Waikoloa Village, Waikoloa Village, Kona side, Big Island, Hawaii, USA, fotoeins.com

Rise and Set: First and Last Light

Above/featured: Facing west into the Pacific from Waikoloa Village on the Big Island of Hawaii, USA – 19 May 2008.

For the last ten years, it’s been an interesting exercise to photograph a variety of sunrises and sunsets at a number of locations around the world. One of my favourite locations was Cerro Tololo and Cerro Pachón in north-central Chile, a place I visited and subsequently worked as astronomer between 1995 and 2011.

But my favourite “sun time” is summer sunrise. Early morning in July has a very special feel; the air is different, it’s still, it’s warm. Birds chirp idly, while the few humans out and about chatter quietly. All like me have eschewed sleep to witness daybreak and sunrise before 6am.

This post is a contribution to WPC’s Rise/Set. This post appears on Fotoeins Fotografie at fotoeins.com as https://wp.me/p1BIdT-bFO with the seven photos appearing here made between 2008 and 2014.

First Light

Final Light

Sunset, Cerro Pachon, Cerro Tololo, Region de Coquimbo, Chile

Bodensee, Lake Constance, Konstanz, Germany, fotoeins.com

World Water Day: an RTW selection

Above: Early start by fishermen on the Bodensee on a misty autumn morning (HL).

22 March is World Water Day:

An international day to celebrate freshwater was recommended at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro. The United Nations (UN) General Assembly responded by designating 22 March 1993 as the first World Water Day.

Cape Town’s dwindling fresh water supply has once again raised attention and a call to examine usage, recycling, and waste of available drinking water.

I list the following examples of fresh water bodies to question our interaction with and impact on water sources, and to ask whether water is truly free and whether some people are more “free” to receive water than others.

  1. Aachener Weiher: Cologne, Germany
  2. Akaka Falls: Hawaii, USA
  3. Aussenalster: Hamburg, Germany
  4. Bodensee: Unteruhldingen, Germany
  5. Capilano Lake: Vancouver, Canada
  6. Eibsee: Grainau, Germany
  7. Embalse Puclaro: Región de Coquimbo, Chile
  8. Foz do Iguaçu: Brazil
  9. Lake Burley Griffin: Canberra, Australia
  10. Lake Matheson: New Zealand’s South Island
  11. Lake Ontario: Toronto, Canada
  12. Lake Washington: Seattle, USA

( Click here for more )

Kea, alpine parrot, Homer Tunnel, Milford Road, South Island, Te Waipounamu, Aotearoa, New Zealand, fotoeins.com

Waitangi Day (6 Feb): 15 images from Aotearoa

Above/featured: The kea is the world’s only alpine parrot and on the endangered list; on Milford Road near Homer Tunnel.

On the 6th of February, I’ll be humming “E Ihowa Atua” and “Pokarekare Ana”.

Waitangi Day is a national holiday in New Zealand to commemorate the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi on 6 February 1840. As the founding document of the country, the Treaty of Waitangi (Te Tiriti o Waitangi) is an accord agreed upon by representatives of the Crown (British Empire) and of indigenous Māori iwi (tribes) and hapū (sub-tribes). The agreement is named after the name of the location in the Bay of Islands where the Treaty was first signed. Despite continuing disagreements between the two parties about contemporary extent and redress, I think the conversation and interactions between the communities are at a more advanced stage of integration within the nation’s fabric by comparison with Australia and Canada.

For Aotearoa, the New Zealand government approved in October 2013 formal names of the two main islands in Māori and English:

•   Te Ika a Māui (“the fish of Māui”) for the North Island, and
•   Te Wai Pounamu (“the waters of greenstone”) for the South Island.

I highlight Aotearoa with 15 images of the following locations:

  1. Akaroa
  2. Auckland
  3. Dunedin
  4. Franz Josef Glacier *
  5. Greymouth
  6. Hapuku (Seaward Kaikouras)
  7. Homer Tunnel *
  8. Lake Matheson *
  9. Milford Sound *
  10. Queen Charlotte Sound
  11. Queenstown
  12. Southern Alps *
  13. Waimakariri River
  14. Wellington City
  15. Wellington Harbour

Asterisks identify locations within the Te Wāhipounamu area in South West New Zealand which was inscribed in 1990 as UNESCO World Heritage Site that includes four national parks: Aoraki/Mount Cook, Fiordland, Mount Aspiring, and Westland Tai Poutini.

( Click here for images and more )