In this issue

1. My Artwork of the Week

2. Frontispiece

3. A new mile marker, a new corner on the road, a new website

4. Waiata mou te Ata-Cherry Blossom Song

5. Fevered Mind Links (to make your Sunday morning coffee go cold)

6. Endpapers

My Artwork of the Week

Photography can be a very humbling experience.

When you think you have it all sorted and are on top of your game, something comes to bite you in the ego.

Changing your camera can do that. Believing that you have your technical stuff together can lead to making silly mistakes. You get the chance of a lifetime, and for one reason or another, you forget the six Ps-Proper Preparation Prevents Piss Poor Performance. As Henri Cartier Bresson stated, "your first 10,000 pictures are your worst". Well, I have nearly 400,000 files (most of them inferior, but I can't bring myself to let them go).

And I am still learning.

Long may it continue.

Thinking you know your subject is another. You've decided you understand everything about it, and there is nothing more to discuss.

Then it shows you something new.

Behind the café at Orepuki (highly recommended if you are passing that way) on the south coast of Southland, about ninety minutes drive from my home, is a beautiful macrocarpa hedge, planted well over a century ago to protect the house on its north side from the bitter gales blowing up from the Southern Ocean. The macrocarpa, also known as the Monterey Cypress, is strong, durable, and able to endure the viciousness of a southern storm.

I have photographed it at least a dozen times, each time believing I finally had it nailed, that I had extracted its essence, thinking I finally had it sorted. Then, I would rest on my laurels, content that I had, to quote Sir Edmund Hillary, "knocked the bugger off."

And each time, it has proven me wrong.

I visited it a few weeks ago. Fujifilm New Zealand had invited me to test drive their new 40MP X-H2 before it was officially launched. "We would really love some pictures made with it, but (said somewhat plaintively), it would be nice if you could do some straight photos rather than your *cough* arty stuff."

I got the message.

And what better place than the macrocarpa hedge?

When I arrived, the storm of the day before had cleared out, and there was only a residual cloud in the sky. One of the problems with photographing that hedge is that it sits between you and the sun, and because the hedge has holes, careful framing is required to ensure there aren't too many bright patches, which can lead to excessive postproduction. The best day is cloudy, and the best time to be there is first thing in the morning. Before sunrise is best; however, to date, I haven't managed to get out of bed early enough, drive for one and 1/2 hours and be there for dawn.

I did my best, taking approaches as I did before.

And it didn't work.

So I took myself next door to the café for lunch. My attempts to capture the soul of the hedge had failed.

When I had finished eating, I went outside and realised the sky had clouded over to the North, but the sky to the south was clear.

I went back to the hedge. This time, I went away from my usual lens, a mid-range zoom, and opted to try a different approach. I bolted on the ultrawide I had and moved in close to the hedge.

I swear I heard that hedge talk to me.

"About bloody time," it whispered to me. "I've been waiting for you to come close. So now you get to see the real me."

I can see that print, beautifully mounted and framed on someone's wall.

Frontispiece

Atamaarie e te whaanau:

good morning everybody.

Firstly a huge apology.

It's been some weeks since I sent out Breathing Light, and a few of you have reached out to ask what had happened to the newsletter and if I was okay. Well, there have been one or two health issues, but hopefully, those are under control.

It's been a hectic time. With mentoring, running custom photo tours, and writing and test driving the new Fujifilm camera, I haven't had enough hours to devote to the newsletter, which can take up to 2 days to write. Instead, I've been focused on making a living. Incidentally, I recently did to Heliflights over Fiordland. It's been nearly three years since I had the opportunity to wander like a hawk over the magnificence of the land and realise the vastness of the national park's 1.2 million acres. The chance to make a record of the journey, accustomed to I've created with the wonderful people from Fiordland Helicopters was too good to miss. So I made a small video of it using my phone. If you're interested, it's on my YouTube channel, and you can watch it yourself. It's down there in the Fevered Mind links.

I realise that we are all under pressure these days, trying to figure out what is going on in the world and how our journey fits into that. However, I'm also mindful that some of you have read my posts for more than fifteen years, and I feel profoundly grateful and obligated.

So, while there has been minimal opportunity to keep up with all I seem to have been asked to do, here is my best attempt.

I hope you enjoy it.

A new mile marker, a new corner on the road, a new website

For a long time, I have felt as if I've been walking along a railway line, with one part of my journey being the left line and the other the right. One line is my journey as a writer, artist and photographer, while the other has been the journey into my whakapapa and purpose. I've never been sure which one was the right one, which was the line upon which I should place my weight.

Lately, however, I have felt myself coming up to a place where the lines merge and integrate, where things begin to fuse.

In the last year or so, I have realised that in trying to do this, I've become splattered and scattered, not this, not that, and yet all of it. So, frankly, it has not been apparent. And, of course, since my work is the product of all I am, who is that person?

Is he the product of his rich Maaori and Waitaha heritage, with a whakapapa that goes back thousands of years, or is he the product of a rich European heritage that also goes back thousands of years?

Or is he both? (I see some of you rolling your eyes!)

About six months ago, I realised it was time to revisit my website(s) to decide what to discard and keep. I suspect for many of us is a lot like that going on at the moment. I keep having conversations with people picking through the back catalogue of their lives and getting rid of stuff that no longer serves. It could be material, mental or spiritual. Or all of the above.

It was time to bring all my work into one place.

Into a new website. And I realised that while I've built a few sites, it was time to call on somebody who did know what they were doing rather than pretend I knew what to do.

So, for the last few months, I have been working with the wonderful Justine Boyd from ladybrainstorms to build a new website that brought all the different parts of me into one place. I wanted to have a pae tukutuku (website), a virtual marae where I could stand and upon which I could build. And now we are (mostly) there. So, on Friday, she gave me the go-ahead to go public with it. Yes, it is thin in places, and the still more work to be done on material which will appear in the coming weeks, as she optimises it for mobile and desktop, but it is done.

On Friday, I put redirects from my other websites to this one, which will be my turangawaewae from now on.

So, without further ado.

May I present…

tonybridgecreates.com

if you have time, I would love you to wander over, look around, and let me know what you think. Any glitches or mistakes you spot would be gratefully appreciated.

And I would like to mihi the other people who have been part of this journey.

He mihi nunui ki a koutou.

My respects to you all.

-Whakatauki Maaori

Waiata mou te Ata-Cherry Blossom Song

Cherryblossom Song

The first thrush of the morning is speaking

carving gentle soundslots in the curtain of the night,

slowly unwrapping and flapping and turning back the dreamquilt of the dark.

The cheery cherry tree in my garden breathing deeply,

unfolds its ripe, rich magnificence with the dawn

and emerges to stand

pinkcheeked and glowing in the refreshed light of day.

Soon a quarrelsquabble of tuui with fussy cravats tucked in will come,

to hang like bejewelled bluebottle plums

from branches dripping with blossom

to gurglegargle warble the nectar,

While hummingdrones of honeybees warmswarm and feed

and adorn themselves with pollen mascara.

Then the feast will be over.

The housekeeper south wind will hustlebustle in,

cold-eyed and purposeful,

to throw open the windows and sweep the tree clean,

pluck the fading flutters of well-fed blooms from the branches

And rain them down in driftcloud dreams of carmine confetti,

sorrowsighing upon the ground,

A hymn to the deckle edge page of the year.

Fevered Mind Links (to make your Sunday morning coffee go cold)

Walking among Sleeping Giants-flying the wonder of Fiordland — www.youtube.com

Fiordland National Park is a Unesco World Heritage site. There are large areas which have never felt human footprints- and never will.

So much of it can only be visited by helicopter or boat.

This is a custom tour I have created for photographers and my photographic mentorees. To experience the vast

Taste of kale makes unborn babies grimace, finds research

If the taste of kale makes you screw up your face, you are not alone: researchers have observed foetuses pull a crying expression when exposed to the greens in the womb.

The astonishing winners of the 2022 Astronomy Photographer of the Year — newatlas.com

The winner of the 2022 Astronomy Photographer of the Year contest is an extraordinary shot of a rarely seen "disconnection event" when solar winds break off a part of a comet’s tail. The image is just one highlight of many in the worlds most prestigious astrophotography contest.

The German Modernist Who Painted a Multicultural United States — hyperallergic.com

To illustrate Langston Hughes’s poem “The Weary Blues,” a German immigrant artist captured “the lazy sway” of a singer at his piano. Cubist fragments form the background of a cabaret and nighttime New York cityscape.

The benefits of being bored — mailchimp.com

There's a benefit to being bored. This is something that life coach Zoe Mallett is proud to preach and is a core part of how she helps creatives connect with themselves on a deeper level.

Wild Sounds: The Loss of Sonic Diversity and Why It Matters

From birdsong in the rainforest to whale calls in the oceans, the world is losing the variety of sounds that enriches life. Habitat loss, species extinctions, and industrial noise all contribute to this sonic loss, which cuts off a vital human connection to the Earth.

Embracing a Wetter Future, the Dutch Turn to Floating Homes

When a heavy storm hit in October, residents of the floating community of Schoonschip in Amsterdam had little doubt they could ride it out.

Scientists Discover That Many Cold-Blooded Creatures Do Not Age — mymodernmet.com

Aging is a scientific puzzle. Every era has its quest—through the elixir of life or botox—to stave off the ravages of time. But the decay of our bodies, known as senescence, seems inescapable. However, not all species share an equal burden of aging.

Sunday Brunch: Deviled Kidneys on Toast Recipe — www.seriouseats.com

Whenever I eat these kidneys, I imagine sitting in a dimly lit bar on the coast of Nova Scotia, with a pint of dark beer eating this dish and preparing myself for an early morning fishing trip.

Where did the Universe come from? — bigthink.com

Of all the questions we can conceive of about the Universe, perhaps the grandest one of all is to ask where it all came from in the first place? This isn’t an easy question, because in order to understand where something came from, we have to first know precisely what it is.

Roger’s Rants: My Canon/Nikon Mirrorless Camera Unfanboy Opinion — www.lensrentals.com

I’ve gotten about 632 texts and emails over the last couple of weeks. About half of them are “I’m a Nikon / Canon shooter. Should I preorder a Z / RF camera?” My answer is generally no.

End Papers

Of this and that

This is probably only of interest to Fujifilm users, but as I mentioned briefly at the beginning of this newsletter, I had a wonderful experience of having a week or so shooting with Fujifilm's new X-H2, an APS-C camera with a whopping forty megapixels jammed into it. Frankly, I was dubious about the image quality, but after using it and pixel-peeping the files, frankly, I'm blown away. As some of you know, I'm slightly (!)anal about file quality. The level of detail is astonishing (but your technique has to be perfect-this camera won't tolerate sloppiness!), and noise is virtually non-existent. Nobody knows how Fujifilm have managed to do this, but they have. And when you think that the camera body is almost half the price of its Big Boy rivals, I think they are onto a winner here.

I have a 2.5 K word review of it, and if you'd like a copy, drop me a line. Or pick up the phone.

Just to let you know

I'm on the road this week to Christchurch to teach a workshop and probably be back sometime the following week. It's unlikely there will be a Breathing Light next week, although I'll do my best. They'll be somewhat patchy for the next few weeks; however, I will try to get something out there when I can.

As always,

keep safe and be kind to each other.

He mihi arohaa nunui ki a koutou kaatoa

much love to you all