824: Somewhere over the rail road track…
“824″. “N-G-A“. – That’s what the local people around here call it. (After the dial code.) Other people I’ve met call it the Ghetto. – “That little town that is laden with gangsters and pretty girls who carry knives in their low rider jeans from Supré”. No matter what ‘colorful’ genre of stigma people put on a place, there’s always something to photograph. – And there are always beautiful things in places that people say are bad.
On the way back from Auckland I found my self in Ngaruawahia, a quiet town separating two cities. This place is actually quite quaint. There are hidden photography backdrop areas every where you go. I think that there is something to be photographed in places that sometimes aren’t enclosed by modern city architecture, it’s something called character. Fashion, design, and photography needs character, in between all of the other things.
- Hippy vans that remind me of the 70′s and broken down car lots.
- Fields of teal-colored wheat and daisies for miles…
- The Victorian era.
* In Ngaruwahia I came across lots of little houses like this. Filigree carved into wood, aged paint, and curtains that look like 1920′s veils.
- Local street art graffiti.
* I was going to say ‘street art’ but most people would probably say it’s graffiti. It’s all something artistic, in some way, to me.
- Old screws and rail pieces from trains and rail road tracks.
So that was my montage from 824. I want to go back there some time to take photographs. A lot of people would probably think I’m crazy, walking around the streets of Ngaruawahia with this camera of mine, but it’s actually like nothing people say it is. It’s beautiful and contrasted, and a lot of people here have nice smiles.
