The last morning of a campervan journey around the East Cape of New Zealand found us at a campsite in Papamoa near Tauranga in The Bay of Plenty. Papamoa is very much a holiday town where houses straddle the length of its long, long beach all the way to Mt Maunganui. From the beach itself you are largely hidden from the urbanisation of the area by sand dunes making a walk along it a peaceful and, in winter, invigorating experience. This man was well dressed for his early morning walk, and I was, too. I processed this photo in Silver Efex Pro2, upping the contrast and adding a red filter that darkened it’s appearance yet captured the mood of that overcast morning. When I look back at it now, I find it quite ironic that I decided to enhance the photo by darkening it in this way. A few months later the sands this man was perambulating upon were stained the colour of the inky sky by the worst oil spill in New Zealand’s history when a negligent captain ran his container ship over the well-marked Astrolab Reef near Tauranga. The oil, containers and their contents, drifted all the way to Papamoa’s lovely beach. But it was all cleaned up after a painstaking effort and is ready for business again.
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