Number 3 - Another great workshop at AUT

Sunday night and the weekend workshop at AUT has finished. I worked alongside Andre Lutzen from Hamburg and we spent the weekend with a small but perfectly formed group of talented individuals. It was a pleasure to meet Andre and see his edgy work and discover that we have so many friends internationally in common. Photography is indeed a very small world. Here is a picture of Andre (on the left), Leonhard Emmerling, Direcor of St Paul Street Gallery (on the right) and me in the middle.

St Paul Street Gallery opening Saturday December 15

I will show my CHINA STORY pictures at St Paul Street......along with Andre Lutzens Congo work. Leonhard Emmerling at St Paul Street Gallery writes, "Hamburg based photographer Andre Luetzen and Auckland based photographer Harvey Benge show new works. Harvey Benge shows CHINA STORY, images from his last voyage to China.
Andre Luetzen shows HEART OF DARKNESS, images from a trip on the River Congo in search of information about the mineral Coltan. The photographic essay is loosely based on Joseph Conrad's novel "Heart of Darkness" and explores the questions, whether something has changed since the era of colonization in the time of globalization.
Harvey and Andre will give a workshop on Saturday and Sunday, December 15 and 16 at St Paul Street Auckland.

Antidote to the city and northern winter

Auckland, Sunday morning. Drive to KareKare on the west coast 40 minutes from my house. This beach made famous for the location of the the film The Piano. Walking south around the headland to the brooding wetlands. No people, just the black sands, ancient cliffs and the boiling sea. Nothing could be further from concrete, steel and traffic, not to mention paralytic transport strikes on wet Parisian winter mornings. Sheltered under a tumbling rocky cliff face is this primaeval pool of dark water, home for generations of fallen pohutakawa trees, their branches locked in some death dance. Am I home?