Every year, the rising of the Matariki Constellation announces the beginning of Te tau hou, the Māori New Year. Which is usually celebrated  with 31 days of culinary events, performances and concerts. Te tau hou historically occurred at the end of harvest season, where most could fill the storage houses with food and come together to celebrate the end of a year and the beginning of the one to come.

Auckland was filled with Matariki Events during the months of June and July, including a Matariki festival weekend at the Silo Park to celebrate the end of the festivities.

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During all the month of May until the 20th of June most Auckland galleries featured exhibitions from the Auckland Festival of photography. To my understanding the festival aims to encourage emerging photographers to exhibit their work in public, so pretty much everyone can expose as long as you sign up for it (please make sure you read conditions in their website if you want to participate next year…just in case)

With over 30 different proposals and talks this is a great choice for a day out in the city (for those who enjoy photography…or not..who knows?) as well as a great day to see most art galleries in the city. I haven’t had the chance to see all of them (specially since most open this week) but I plan to tick off as much as I can.

If you have the chance i have a few recommendations based on the exhibits I’ve been to.

Nikon Photo Contest 2012-2013 Winner

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Maybe it was the fact that it was cloudy that everything looked grey during daytime, maybe I’m just right or maybe there was something else, but if I can say something after my trip to Sydney is this: Sydney City was made for the night. I know some of you will try to come after me, talk about the beaches, and the sun and the “always summer” feeling you always get from looking at images of Oz, but Im just talking about the city centre. The lighted up bridge, the opera shinning and the city view, showing all the colours possible from neon lights. This is part 2 from the Sydney Diaries….this is Sydney by night.

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I get weekly emails from a website called Concrete playground and Big Little City with events and things to do in the city. In one of those emails I saw there was an interactive exhibition in the Aotea centre called “Emerging pixels” and I thought it was a good idea to go, maybe take a few photos even some videos and do a blog post. I guess I wasn’t expecting it to be a total fail.

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