chase the light

Let me translate this from kiwi into American english for you. Horse shit 50 cents. New Zealand white trash. On a failed attempt to get all the way up to Mt. Taranaki (too many stops to take pictures of bags of shit) I drove about a third of the way up New Zealand’s west coast. Then it started to rain, hail, and all hell broke loose, so this little piggy drove all the way home.

I came to win, but I was born to lose. Or second to last. After work on Saturday the Daytona Raceway was booked up for Weta and we drove around, and around, and around, and around, and around, and around… 60 times to be exact. Those little buggers are fast. You have to wear these nasty little nets to cover your head because, ya know, people be sweatin’ in the helmets. Erik displays this proudly in the gallery. I think all eight of the go-kart commandments were broken. We paired up into two man teams (orange), and the starting drivers have to run to their karts and begin the race. As your teammate does 10 laps you hold up the “1 more lap” sign, and he’s supposed to stop next time around. Then you get in the car and do 10 laps. Other than sore muscles, Deb was the only injury.

Sunday driving up to the wine country. It’s kinda like this… leave L.A., drive through the grapevine, and end up in Napa Valley. Except it’s; leave Wellington, drive through the Rimutaka range, and end up in the Wairarapa. Same thing really. Just no 5 hour drive through the central valley. Did I buy wine? No, but I bet you can guess what I bought at the big apple by the side of the road. According to the sign… “On November 26th 1841, a party led by Robert Stokes and John W. Child, and with two Maori guides, made the first european crossing of the Rimutaka range into the Wairarapa. Took me less than 45 minutes without Maori guides, so what’s the big deal? You wouldn’t know it, but the wind is blowin’ close to a million miles an hour. And the sheep said “what?”.

Off to the Te Papa Museum. It’s a everything you ever wanted to know about the history of New Zealand museum. Te Papa = Our Place. Ok, it comes down to this. Kiwi’s, sheep, glow worms, and mountains. New Zealand in a nutshell. The little Kiwi carries the largest egg compared to its body size of any animal. Play the audio file to get a kids perspective on the kiwi. Hilarious. Kiwi info abounds. Lot’s of kiwis. Way to many kiwi’s if you ask me. This ugly head thing below is supposed to be a baby. It was built by Weta to be in the film “The Frighteners” but then was never used. So for some reason the Te Papa museum wanted it installed in their kids section. Freak ’em out is what it’s going to do. Rob Engle from Imageworks was visiting and that is my one photo of him. It’s so DEVO. Ground control to Major Rob. Can you here Major Rob? Tah dah, the weird stuff at Te Papa.

It was pretty cold last night. (How cold was it?) It was so cold, that when the sun came over the hill and hit the roofs, they all started steaming like they were on fire. This is the street all the people who are late to work have to park on. The residents can get pretty annoyed by all the Weta employees but I also think they enjoy the fact that something as huge as Lord Of The Rings is being done just across the street. Occasionally I get stopped by a few of the neighborhood kids and asked questions. Oh yeah, it turned out to be a really nice day so Jill and I went back to the Chocolate Fish [LINK]. A large group of bikers went by, freight ships went by, and a seagull wanted some food.

All I hear them saying is… “Cunningham, have a seat, we need to talk”. You’d think one of them could muster a smile. Eating outside at the Chocolate Fish Cafe on a day without a single cloud. The waiters have to run across the street to bring you your food. So just how far south is New Zealand? This was shot at 12:30pm and look at the shadows on the ground. It’s that far south.

So, what did you do today? Crazy/Beautiful. Go ahead, click through the gallery.

As much as you like them. They really don’t care much for you. They smell like concentrated ocean stink too. And yes I waited for the boat to come into frame because the Kodak Moment Guide Book said I should do shit like that.

As I was walking out of work I noticed the top of the hill looked like it was on fire. Or someone had a giant floodlamp on. So I drove over the hill to see what was up and realized that it was the moon poking through the clouds over Worser Bay. It was absolutely amazing looking. So I preceded to take lots of blurry uninteresting photos of it.

What it’s like to be a lighter. Go to dailies. Stare at your screen. Poke the mouse. Stare at the screen some more. Surf the web. Check the render. Poke the mouse. Try to figure out why nothing works. Deal with it later, surf the web. Check the render. Go to lunch. Check the render. Jill on overtime hours.

The airport was closed all day because of low clouds. Not a lot to see today, except this float.

Uh oh, dork alert. Over in the Weta workshop they have all sorts of cool shit. Much more interesting than the digital side of things. Giant statues, set pieces, minatures, etc. As of tommorrow this statue of Lurtz [LINK] is on it’s way to England for the premiere of “The Two Towers” in December. It’ll be at the theater where they hold the premiere. Or so I’m told. It’s really cold over there because it’s just a giant warehouse. Beat your ass with this weapon I will. Oh brother, who told me to hold that? Gino Acevedo invited a few texture painters over and since I shared a room with them I tagged along. The old man and the dog are from the film “The Frighteners” [LINK].

The Wellington Zoo on a cold breezy Sunday. I quickly found out animals do not like cold and breezy Sundays.

Owhiro Bay at the bottom end of the north island. If you look close you can see the interislander ferry as a small white speck. On the horizon, right where the land meets the water on the left hand side.

This is the view from The Terrace Villas [LINK] above Wellington. This view looks a lot nicer than it actually is. I cropped a lot of the ugliness out.

That’d be a donkey. A Horokiwi donkey to be exact. That’s just the name of the little town I was in. I have no idea what kind of donkey it is. It’s woolly, I know that much. I’m getting good at these animals through fences photos [GOAT PHOTO]. Yep, that’s my car. Yeah, it was pretty bad. Yeah I hurt my shoulder. Yes all the air bags went off. Yes I went deaf for about 30 secs. Yeah, it sucked. Yes I ended up on the wrong side of the road distracted by something I wanted to photograph. The guy I hit was so incredibly nice. His wife and son came down from the house. They offered up some coffee as we waited for the police to arrive. She took the report and then both vehicles were towed away and insurance took care of it from there. His wife and son walked back to the house and after it was all said and done the guy gave me a ride into the city! I went and slept the rest of the day as it’s not the best feeling in the world to get in accident. Had this happened in the states I’d probably still be dealing with a lawsuit of some sort. When you rent a car… get the extra insurance. It comes in handy.