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Heliconia Rostrata (Lobster Claws)

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This striking flower has the common name "lobster claws" for obvious reasons. Its botanical name is "heliconia rostrata". I'm guessing "heliconia" is Latin for the Greek "helix". And I know all my readers are incredibly vocabulary-rich, so you all know the answer to what is a helix?

I extracted the flower from a photo taken in the conservatory in Golden Gate Park. Of course it was a busy background so it took a little time to do, but not like it would have if I were using a mouse to do the selections, like I had been doing. After years of "photoshopping" and an aching wrist, I bought a Wacom Pen Tablet a couple of months ago. I always knew I should have been using a pen tablet, but if you are a photography/photoshop enthusiast like me, you will know that this is one of the most expensive hobbies you can have the misfortune to get passionate about, and you have to prioritize your purchase; there is always a wishlist. Anyhow, I can say I am more than delighted with my pen tablet, and selections are so much easier and faster now. If you do a lot of photoshopping yourself, including selections, I recommend you get one!


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Samoan Youth

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This young man was preparing with his friends for his moment of fame on the stage at the Samoan Village at the Polynesian dance festival called Pasifika in Auckland in March this year. Samoan Youth Canon EOS 20D 1/30sec at f/20 ISO 200 Canon 70-300mm lens at 300mm More photographs from the same Pasifika Festival day can be found in my new post, Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival .
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Faces of Pasifika 2007 — A Day at Auckland's Pacific Festival

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The 15th anniversary Pasifika Festival poster — a collage of the Pacific cultures the festival celebrates. On Saturday 10 March 2007, I spent the day at the Pasifika Festival at Western Springs Park in Auckland. It was the festival's 15th year — an annual celebration of Pacific Island cultures that has been part of Auckland's calendar since 1993, and which typically draws crowds of well over 100,000 across the day. Nine Pacific villages are traditionally represented — Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands, Niue, Fiji, Tuvalu, Tokelau, Kiribati and Tahiti — with music, dance, food, arts, and craft from each community sharing the same park for the day. I usually visit New Zealand earlier in February, but in 2007 I was there in March and it was the first — and, to date, only — time I've been able to attend Pasifika. I hope to make it back one of these years. But I came away from that single visit with the str...
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Cool Granny in Her Austin A35 — © John Corney 2026 This one has a real backstory, and I'd like to tell it properly. An Auckland Sighting On one of my annual visits home to New Zealand, I was walking through central Auckland — at the corner of Queen Street and Karangahape Road (K Road, as everyone calls it) — when a small yellow car went past me and stopped me mid-stride. It was a beautifully kept Austin A35, one of the little British runabouts that were everywhere in New Zealand when I was growing up in the fifties and sixties. Driving it was a woman of a certain age with the confident bearing of someone who had been driving that same car, or one like it, for decades. She looked entirely at home behind the wheel. She belonged to the car and the car belonged to her, and neither of them was in any hurry to change. If you know Auckland, that particular corner will register: Queen Stree...
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