A Moment of Light photography by Carl Street

If there is one word that would sum up this month it is 'lockdown'. When you consider that the road in front of our house is the main route from Dunedin to Queenstown it has been so weird to have it completely quiet for hours at a time. I then looked at how far we have travelled in the last month and the car has only been driven just over 20kms!! With the positive effects on our bank account perhaps we should have a self imposed lockdown once a year ;-)

The whole world has gone through the strangest time with the coronavirus pandemic. At the start of the month there were less than 1 million cases world wide, by the middle of the month it topped 2 million and by the end of the month it's well over 3 million.....crazy times. If I am to take any positives from this it is the way people, certainly in our local town and the wider New Zealand, have adhered to the governments lockdown of the country and helped to keep it in check here. Who knows when we may get to a more 'normal' mode of life but for this moment in time it is good to take stock of the important things in life and not jeopardise them by being reckless.

I've been fortunate enough to be involved in a local project creating digital copies of old photographs stored in the Teviot Valley Museum to go onto an interactive display at the museum and local information centre. I was able to grab all the albums I needed before we were placed in full lockdown so that project has kept me busy and sane through the month.

I've also cooked a lot of food and made lots of breads so the freezer is well stocked with goodies.

I did say last month that this blog update is likely to contain images that are slightly more eclectic.......well, I wasn't wrong ;-)

With lockdown in full swing we have been even more appreciative of our wonderful manual espresso coffee machine. Soo many people have gone without good coffee for the last few weeks....eek! We've even had virtual catchups with friends for coffee which worked really well. No doubt at all that the ability to have FaceTime and Zoom meetings has made the lockdown feel a lot less isolated than it would have.

Playing around with double exposures, a flower in the garden and the side of the car in this case.

More in camera double exposure experimenting

Not sure we should be grateful to have these in the lawn but it did give me an hour or so of fun creating images.

Another one from the garden

Love shapes created by strong shadows in the house.

Gorgeous last afternoon light lighting up our view across the valley

Bit of a stylised shot part way through the month capturing the feeling that we are stuck inside with nowhere to go.

A particularly windy and wet night left leaves scattered across our deck

A walk (from the our home) takes us past the local orchards where the leaves are confirming we are in autumn.

Plenty of the valleys finest apples on the trees. These were just by the side of the road, seemed a shame not to and, they were delicious :-)

View down the valley with the trees in full golden splendour

Early morning light makes for such a peaceful view from our place

We, like most of NZ, were up early for the ANZAC dawn service. Normally this is a time for large gatherings of people to remember those who gave their lives to protect our country but this year in lockdown we all stood at the end of our driveways in isolation and contemplation listening to the service on the radio. A beautiful peaceful morning very fitting of the occasion.

As usual we have plenty of fog this time of year which gives wonderful rays of light as the sun comes up behind the trees.

To finish off the month some photography playing to come up with an image that would not normally be seen on these blogs but a type of image I really love.