From the road

Finally had some time this week to start working through the backlog of shots from recent trips away. Funny what you come across! the waterfall pic above shows a rather strange experience. Picture the scene, an out of season, road less travelled with a 30 minute hike through mud and streams to the promise of a spectacular waterfall shot - sounds like perfect Kodak moment material eh? Unless of course 3 other photographers got there before you and are standing right in the middle of the falls - very dedicated of them I thought. If you are out there guys, I would love to see what you came up with! For me it was plan B, head down river to a less 'crowded' scene to take a river and forest shot instead!

Another image I came across was this one of the Moeraki Boulders. My wife however is not impressed that it perpetuates the myth (as she sees it) that these boulders are huge! So, here's my disclaimer (confession if you like) - yes they are only just over a metre tall and most of the time they are covered by swarming tourists... but the incoming tide soon takes care of that little problem....wooo hahahaha (and other evil cackling sounds)!

Both of these shots had me reaching for the trusty ND filter... and polariser... and graduated ND filter! It's a wonder any light actually made it into the camera!

Jumping Jack Flash

Things have been a bit more local this week and the bags have stayed in the closet. Been good to regroup and have some time to go through images from recent trips. Might even get as far as putting them in to my stock library... you never know!

I finally got to go ahead with a shoot that had been waiting on the weather for nearly two weeks. The sun shone but boy it was a fresh 5ºc...I know, I know I'm getting soft! The shoot was for a business at a viewpoint that overlooked their local area. You don't get much time for this type of shoot, especially when your subjects are likely to get permafrost! Kept things simple with a couple of radio triggered Canon flashes to give the images some spark and fill the shadows. It meant we could keep things moving swiftly.

Sometimes business people need a little relaxing in front of the camera and Steve who was directing the shoot came up with a great idea. Jumping jacks, yes you read that right. Watching the photographer leaping up and down made people relax, crack a smile and had the bonus of keeping me nice and warm!

That's the bonus of putting the camera on a tripod and using a cable release. You are free to interact a whole lot more with your subject and even keep fit on the job!

When good flights go bad

I've been pretty lucky with my flights lately, but my luck ran out on Wednesday this week when a 1 hour flight turned into a 30 hour saga! Bad weather in the South Island meant planes were grounded, leaving everyone high and dry in the north.

I was lucky as I could drive back home and wait it out, but plenty of people didn't have that option. The next day I tried again and got bumped from 1.30pm to 3.30pm to 5.30pm, eventually taking off at 6.30pm - 30 hours after my original flight time. Needless to say there were many many phone calls to rearrange schedules. Bad weather can't be avoided of course, but keeping your passengers better informed would have been nice Jetstar!

I couldn't get round as many locations as I'd hoped, but thankfully my client is fantastic and VERY understanding! So it was a bit of a flying visit (excuse the pun) to Wellington, racing straight from the airport to the first location with not a minute to spare - no time to work out where 'reverse' was on the rental, so I had to park accordingly! Got the shots and finally made it to my hotel around 10.30pm...just in time to fall asleep in my dinner!

Up at 6.00am to beat the morning rush hour en-route to my next location on Willis street in Wellington. By 9.00am I had done my dash and had a little time to breathe and take in some sights. It was an awesome day to view the city from Mt Victoria, so that's just what I did and got some panoramic shots with great cloud formations.

From there I headed out to Titahi Bay with its colourful boatsheds and the wind whipping up some pretty decent waves. Followed a sign to Whitireia Park on the Te Onepoto Peninsular and what a gem that turned out to be. A single lane road out onto a headland with fantastic vistas out across the Porirua Harbour to Mana Island as well as the South Island.

The wind was absolutely howling here and actually blew me over at one point as I clung on to my tripod. It was just so wild, windy and wonderful, made even more so with spectacular views down on the windsurfers and kite surfers at the end of the headland.

I had just enough time to flatten my 'hoover head' hair down for my last shoot at Porirua before racing back to the airport and flying home, with no delays this time - Yesssss!

Blown Away

Plenty more kms on the clock again this week - 1200 over 4 days and masses of fantastic scenery. Winter has a firm grip now though and so grey skies and rain hindered the Kodak moments en route. Actually I wonder what moments we have now Kodak has filed for bankruptcy?

Being out in the elements is all good though and I had a great experience just north of Palmerston North. As you might have seen from a previous blog entry, I do like a wind farm and just north of Palmy is a whole smorgasbord of them!

The shot here shows some of the turbines at Te Apiti. It was a brief moment in between the rain and cloud with a magical glimpse of light. What the picture doesn't show is how incredibly windy it was - I could barely stay upright it was so strong.

I managed to wedge the end of the lens against a fence post just long enough to fire off a couple of shots before being blown over. The force of the wind was staggering and the sound of the turbine blades cutting through the air was quite surreal.

After an hour or so of being wind blasted I drove down into Woodville, to a wonderful cafe called Yummy Mummy's for a recharge. Mmmm caramel slice blaarrghhhh (and other Homer Simpson noises)! It took me a while to work out why everyone was giving me funny looks 'til I caught sight of my reflection and saw my 'attacked by a rabid hoover' hairstyle - some might reckon its an improvement of course!