Mario Brothers, a blast from the past in more ways than one! I’ve started going through some photos for my March gallery show and stumbled across this shot from 2014. I was in Auckland, NZ for a business trip and spent a Saturday on Devenport Island walking around playing tourist.

I took a bit of a walk up Mount Victoria to grab some photos of the amazing views at the summit. When I got up there, I nearly laughed my ass off when I saw the mushrooms! Imagine walking for a few hours and coming to the top of the trail and seeing pipes with mushroom tops dotting the landscape.

Once I regained my senses, I took a look at them and figured they were ventilation pipes for something, but what? (No Not Aliens!). I grabbed a few “just for fun” shots of the field of ‘shrooms while talking to a couple locals who explained they were vents for an underground water pumping station. I had forgotten about these images until digging for another shot from that New Zealand trip and decided to muck around with it and see what I could make.

Overall, I really didn’t do much to this photo in post. In On1 Photo I cleaned up the colors a bit, added a touch of dynamic contrast, and cropped a bit. The largest thing I did in post was adding a tilt-shift filter to create some depth in the image and add some bokeh to the grass. While the edits really weren’t jumping through many hoops – I think my photographic bouncing skills did Mario Brothers proud!

I’ve also made this image available on my online store. If you are interested in buying a print they are available in multiple sizes and formats through SmugMug.


Image EXIF data:

  • Aperture: ƒ/8
  • Camera: NIKON D610
  • Taken: 14 November, 2014
  • Focal length: 85mm
  • ISO: 100
  • Shutter speed: 1/250s
  • Title: Mario Brothers on Devonport

John P. Hoke

John P. Hoke headshot

Cyber Security Professional, Photographer, Coffee Junkie, Mac Addict, Craft Beer & Whiskey connoisseur, all around curmudgeon and generally sarcastic SOB – Not necessarily in that order.

The opinions expressed on this blog are mine alone and not those of my employer, family, pets, the voices in my head, or anyone else for that matter … hell in an hour they may not be mine either 🙂

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