Where Once Truth Was

There was a time when I could walk this path and there was no one here.  The car park was always empty.  It could be the height of spring and a fresh new day and still no one.  I would walk and see nothing but beauty. But things have changed and now others come here too, and more frequently by the day - ever since the falls received a top 10 tourist ranking.  Many of them have forgotten the common courtesies that one should pay to nature, and so they leave their many marks and signs in the landscape. Evidence against hope as the photographer Robert Adams puts it.

And there I was, making photographs of the natural scenery, wanting to record the hopefulness that lies hidden in the mystery and beauty of the world: excluding what I didn't like from the camera frame, to give an interpretation of hope untainted.

But then what can I say about the the truthfulness of my photographs. Have they been reduced to fraudulence? Perhaps I can present these slightly dishonest photos under the guise of optimism? Maybe not convincingly (not to myself at least), not if optimism itself requires denying reality.

So here are photos of hope and what it became in its tainted form that day.

Wairere falls. Taken at vandalized native vine

Wairere Stream. From recently graffitied foot bridge

Tree ferns. Taken 50 or so steps from barley sugar wrapper

Inner forest at half eaten apple

500 year old Rimu tree near vomited dog biscuits

Toi Toi flowers in the wind. Derelict campsite under trees in background containing 2 dozen shrink wrapped plastic plates, old shoes, perished tent fly, child's butterfly net, and other litter.

Fractured rock. Two girls smoke and text message behind boulders

Three boulders at cigarette butt

View from waterfall ledge across dairy farms