I’m taking a break…

By On · 2 Comments · In Lake Pukaki, Landscapes, Photography, Travel

In the year and a half since I first registered this domain, I’ve seen more personal change take place in my life than in many years prior. For this reason, and many others, I’m putting this blog on the shelf while I refocus and reimagine what I want to achieve from my online presence…

Since the last update I made, a lot has happened for me. I’ve started a business. I’ve fallen in love. I’ve bought and sold many possessions. I’ve discovered new hobbies while abandoning others. I’ve made new friends and enemies. But most importantly of all, I’ve been forced to recognise what is really important on my life, and how critical it is that I focus on these key areas. So, with this in mind, I’m signing off:

Goodbye-World

When I first delved into the world of blogging, I was a completely different person to who I am now. Or perhaps my goals, expectations and aspirations were different. In either case, I’ve changed my view on what this website should consist of.

The biggest area of concern for me though, is the quality of my work. Admittedly, I’m rather critical of myself in many areas, perhaps a little too much, but in this case I do feel that I’ve got a long way to go before the images that appear here will truly satisfy me or my viewing audience. This has been on my mind a lot recently, and has prevented me from reengaging with the sport of photography with the same passion I had applied in the past. I felt that unless I threw everything I thought I knew out the door and stared from scratch with a clear vision, I’d be disappointed. So, I simply haven’t been shooting for months.

A fellow creative colleague and good friend, Stefan Haworth, tells me this is common and that I should expect the fire to come and go, to dwindle every now and then. I do agree with him, but what I don’t think is common is the headspace that I’ve occupied… I’ll be the first to admit I’ve taken on way too much crap and not dealt with it all that well. In this case, I think the fallout from my overcommitment was a little delayed, with me not realising the impact the change of lifestyle had on me until it had truly taken hold.

While I can make it sound bad, the reality is quite different… Things are actually rather brilliant right now!

My professional career is going exceptionally well, and while there have been some difficulties to cope with, the overall picture points to a brighter future with greater financial security. I’m currently running or helping to run four companies; my own IT/Creative Consulting business (DeepFocus Limited), covering for a close friend who is on annual leave and taking care of his client base (QTIT Limited), building up my family’s creative entity (We Think | Design & Print) and administering the IT and Creative aspects of a local Architecture and Engineering business (GreenBeing Limited).

To add to the mix, I’ve fallen in love with an amazing woman that I met through business. The story of how it happened is an incredible saga, and as a close friend said to me when I told him; “you can’t make this shit up”. The transition to being in a relationship again brings with it its own challenges and adjustment period, but for the most part the past four months have been fantastic, and I’m thrilled to share my time with someone so special. More on this to come.

Onto the subject of photography…

As I’ve outlined above, I feel it’s time to start afresh and revise my process to get results that are properly satisfying. I’ve seen some close friends pulling off some wicked stuff (see here and here for some truly inspirational stuff from Codie Westphall, the guy who originally got me into all this) with little more than basic filters and tweaks in Lightroom. This confirms what I’ve felt for a long time; that heavy post-processing is unnecessary and in many ways detracts from the end result. When I talk about “heavy” post processing, I’m not talking about the obsessive approach to get every little detail right, thats completely acceptable. I’m talking about modifying the frame to the point where the result barely resembles the scene in its original glory. I’m talking about HDR, and bad HDR at that.

I think that High Dynamic Range photography has a place in the profession, but I’m on the fence as to whether it’s really where I want to focus my energy. I see fantastic HDR work from colleagues overseas, but when I look at it alongside the more natural stuff, I feel the latter is a more appropriate style for me to focus on. With that in mind, I’ve pulled my camera out on a few occasions to get my brain used to shooting without unnecessary post processing…

Sunset over Mt Cook

This result is from Lake Pukaki, looking towards Mt Cook in the distance. While lighting conditions were far from perfect, its a departure from my usual style and one that I hope will set the scene moving forward. This is the sort of photo I want to be taking on a regular basis, but with everything else going on in my life, I need to refocus and find time to enjoy what is purely a hobby for me, not a profession by any means. When people have asked me in the past “hows your photography going?” I’ve usually responded with “It’s not going at all, I’ve put it on hold…”. And that’s the purpose of writing this post, explaining for those who care why I’ve been absent lately, and what I plan to do with myself moving forward.

As for this site, I will certainly pour time and energy into the rebuild come the new year. I’ve got a long list of publications to draw inspiration from, and I have a very clear idea in my head of what I want it to look like. I’ll still publish photos, but I’ll also be using this blog as a forum for discussion about other areas of interest for me… So stay tuned for that!

That’s it for this year, folks. I’m literally about to pack for a trip to Stewart Island where I plan to relax for the next several days and clear my head. I’ll be offline for most of this time, enjoying the sun (hopefully) and the sea, going fishing and spending time with my other half.

I’ll be back in 2013.

The Epic Journey South

By On · 8 Comments · In Astrophotography, Landscapes, Long Exposure, Photography, Queenstown, Southland, Travel

10 Hours. 500 Kilometers. 3 Photographers. We seek the Aurora Australis.

I’m exhausted. But I feel fantastic! Last night I got a long awaited chance to revisit the passion for photography when I received a text message from close friend Stefan Haworth suggesting I call him as soon as possible. When word of a potentially epic solar storm was exchanged, I dropped my plans for invoicing and paperwork that night and immediately drove to meet Stefan at home. En Route to get fuel and make our way south, my other good friend Trey Ratcliff called and asked if he could join us on this mission – we were glad to bring him along, although cautioning him that it could be a very late night!

Needless to say, that turned out to be the case. We started our journey in central Queenstown at 9.52pm, and didn’t retune until just before sunrise the next morning. I don’t have much more to say about these photos other than to detail my goals for each one, what I got right, what I got wrong, and what I’ve learned for next time. Enjoy.

Stefan and I initially headed to the top of Queenstown Hill, not far from where Trey is staying currently… This test exposure told us everything we needed to know, and we decided a tank of fuel was well worth the potential results that this sky could bring:

This result is straight out of the camera, with zero post processing. Our immediate concern was the looming cloud cover that could potentially block the view to the south. Pictured here is Kelvin Heights with Cecil Peak in the background.

Looking due south towards Kingston, the aurora was in full swing – we picked up Trey and began driving in that direction.

We needed to get further away from the light pollution of Queenstown, so we followed the highway along the lake and through the Devils Staircase until we reached one of the many lookout points along the way. Initial exposures looked pretty awesome, and this is my pick of the bunch from this stop:

The mistake I made here was not shooting wide enough. Given another chance, I would have zoomed right out to 16mm and applied a crop in post only if needed. I think Trey got an awesome result here that does the scene a little more justice than this photo does. Fortunately, there was more than one angle to explore, and I’m reasonably happy with the colors of this result from a little later as a single beam from the aurora lept out from behind the mountain rage and into the Milky Way:

Even in this photo, I could have exposed the scene a little better… But I was limited by the aperture of my Sigma 10-20mm lens only going as wide as f/3.5, forcing me to increase my ISO accordingly, adding noise to deal with in post. Adding long exposure noise reduction to the mix was something we all chose to avoid, but I regret not doing this – as even at this size you can see how a 30 second exposure at ISO 5000 bumps the noise up to an almost unbearable level.

A final shot from this first location, this is a portrait orientation as my first selected image. For this I once again could have shot a little wider – but feel that the visible stars in the frame add a lot of character to the image:

Overall, I feel that both Stefan and Trey got the better photos here. But this was my first time shooting in these conditions, and I was somewhat limited by my equipment and lack of preparation. A learning experience for sure – and I aimed to improve my results at the next two stops…

We left Kingston behind and ventured further south. Trey took the opportunity to upload teaser images to Facebook, Twitter and Google+… Naturally the community went a little nuts. Even the phone pictures of the back of his camera showed awesome potential – it was great to see him genuinely excited about the adventure! I’d have felt bad if we ended up on a wild goose chase in the middle of Southland, but fortunately Mother Nature kept up the display, and we made a quick stop on the highway to venture into a farmers field – seeking a silhouette of the landscape against the sky:

This time I was happy with what I saw on the back of the camera. I deliberately framed the shot to give a sense of scale and aimed to have the eye led in by the trees in the foreground. Equally important however, was the choice of white balance for the photo – it makes a massive difference when shooting the night sky!

By this stage, the magenta color had backed off and the aurora had subsided a little, but there was still plenty of color to be found and some excellent details in the bands of light dancing on the horizon. As we left this location, it was half past one in the morning and we decided to make a run for the coast given that we were basically half way there.

Between the field and the coast, we made several stops where scenes grabbed us – but I didn’t feel the results had enough impact to publish. I might revisit them someday, but for now I’ll share my final photo of the evening…

This time I really feel like it all came together! We reached the coast and immediately used what little 3G coverage we had to map out a route to a decent vantage point. Trey needed to be back in Queenstown by 8 AM to get the kids to school, and while that seemed like a very reasonable timeframe when we began this mission, the more we shot the more we found ourselves getting closer to the point of no return.

With a clear view of the entire horizon, we could see the aurora stretching from one side to the other. From our vantage point to the east of Invercargill, there was no significant land mass between us and Antarctica. The view was breathtaking, and the sound of surf crashing on the beach relaxing. We were running out of usable time and light, so I ventured to the edge of the nearest cliff and set up for my last photo that aimed to bring together all the elements in the frame:

The aurora, the cloud formations, the Milky Way and the lights of Bluff in the distance. For some reason this photo really works for me, although I’m not sure why… We would have kept shooting until the sun rose, alas, by the time I took this photo it was 4.36 AM. Time to go. We packed up our gear and navigated our way back to Invercargill before following the highway to Queenstown. Stefan drove, we talked, Trey dozed in the back. Unlike us, he had to actually do something today – whereas Stefan and I both aimed to get to bed as soon as possible.

Interestingly enough, despite walking in my front door at 8.30 AM, once I had a few hours sleep I was able to get some work done and have a reasonably productive day. And here I am, almost exactly 24 hours after this crazy mission began, well overdue for a good nights rest.

Trey, Stefan and I had a fantastic time on this adventure! For me, it successfully re-ignighted my passion for spontaneous photography missions that challenge my creativity and keep expanding my skill set. A lot of what I wrote in my previous post was fueled by frustration and irritation towards the photography community, so its nice to have something inspiring and positive to share with the world for a change.

I’ve got a lot of plans to work on over the next few months… Some of which will impact this blog and the purpose of it, but thats a story for another day!

Transitions: Part Two

By On · Add Comment · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

On the topic of change, that is something I’ve been experiencing a lot of lately… What catches me off guard however, isn’t how the world is changing, thus directly affecting my life – but the changes within myself that adjust my perception of the world. While I wouldn’t go as far as to say I’ve “turned a corner”, there is something very different about how I think now compared to say, six months ago.

Since the topic of this blog has been photography since its creation, I will begin with sharing another photo – again from the Queenstown Photo-walk last December – and elaborate a little more on whats going on in my head when I think about myself behind the camera…

As I stated in the previous post, my perception of photography is undergoing somewhat of a transformation. I’m not at all inclined to stagnate my style and neglect artistic exploration. By that I mean I don’t want to be put in a fucking box. Unfortunately its not quite that simple, and if my experience in social media has taught me anything, its that one cannot judge their own success off the endless swarms of people willing to give nothing but positive feedback. I have a huge respect for those willing to cut the crap (cheers, Stefan & Codie) and be brutally honest – I’ve grown to crave this feedback for my own personal and professional development.

Recently I’ve become incredibly frustrated by what I consider to be baseless fanfare combined with an un-educatede appreciation for quality. I’m sick of those who produce crap that is swallowed up and regurgitated in the form of comments that sound like they come from a brainless sparrow. To be clear on what I mean by this, I have no problem whatsoever with those that appreciate artwork that is a little outside the scope of regular. My issue lies with those that produce utterly shit results and do it en masse as to block out any form of honest & constructive feedback.

Those who lower the overall standards compromise the integrity of industries and professions alike… I’m sorry, thats just what I believe.

Every passion I have in life revolves around a ‘perfectionist model’ – that is to say I do everything to the best of my ability. In many cases, if I can’t do it well, I won’t do it at all. If its a professional task, I will either gain the skill myself, or outsource the job to someone I consider capable. With that in mind, I understand that many won’t feel that I do as well as I’d like to – and given a clear line of communication, I would likely agree with them, hence my desire for honest & credible feedback.

So how does this all relate to photography? Well, in a nutshell it means I feel my results aren’t up to standard. I browse sites like 500px and wonder to myself “why am I not producing results like this?”. The only conclusion I can come up with is that I’m not applying myself as well as I could, and based on my model for perfection, I put my photography in the background and focus on things that I know I can do very well.

Despite temptations to put it on hold entirely, thats counter-productive. My investment in equipment and skill need not go wasted… And when the opportunity arrises to spend valuable time with mates behind the lens – I will always jump at the chance.

Dammnit!

Perhaps the universe just gave me a hint to stop writing before I shoot myself in the foot… I was in the middle of critiquing the user experience of a website when it crashed my browser and cause me to lose the second half of this post. Oh well. I’ll save these thoughts for another time.

Basically this post was about getting some thoughts out there and seeing if anyone agrees… Granted, many might find this harsh approach akin to a crusade, and in many ways I guess it is. I’m just formalizing a set of criteria that govern how I operate in the world. People can take it or leave it, I’m not forcing these opinions on anyone. Those who now me well understand that these thought processes enable me to do well in specific areas of life – cheers, Asperger syndrome…

Transitions: Part One

By On · 5 Comments · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

It’s been well over a month since my last update. For whats its worth, I apologize for dropping off the radar with no explanation… I’ll get to why this happened in a little while, but first I’d like to share what will quite possibly be one of the last photos of its kind from me, taken just before christmas last year in Queenstown while I attended a local photo walk with peers & colleagues.

During this photo walk, our group of 30 or so made our way along the shores of Lake Wakatipu in the evening, before reaching the far end of the gardens peninsula just on sunset. This is where (despite the wind & difficult shooting conditions) several of us braved the water and set up our cameras to capture the evening light. Given this was taken in December, the sun was to set at the wonderful hour of 9pm – something I throughly enjoy during summer, as we can frequently be found enjoying the lake as late in the day as possible.

Alas, that was then, this is now. The mountains in Queenstown have had their first drop of snow, and the days are try short and cold. I can’t say I particularly enjoy winter, aside from the few days of solid blizzard we usually get when the season peaks. So, about these ‘transitions’… Its a little harsh to call this ‘the last of its kind’, but thats very much how I’m viewing things currently. As the title of this post suggests, I’m going through a series of changes (both personal and professional) that are really making me take a good hard look at life and how the various pieces of the puzzle fit together.

Fortunately, most of these changes are very positive in nature, and are somewhat the result of months of work & planning on my part. I won’t go into elaborate detail, but one thing I will highlight for this post is some of the new ways I’ve been looking at life;

I kind of feel like a switch has been flicked in my mind. Like I suddenly understand what it is I’m meant to be doing with myself. For the first time in a long time, I’m working towards solid goals and aspirations with some very clear objectives in mind – rather than simply taking life as to comes. There is always a very fine balance when it comes to this, but fortunately I’ve been able to find that rather easily and come to terms with this new outlook.

One of the first things I did this year was to write down a list of these goals and carry it with me. Interestingly enough, when I went to put this list of goals in my wallet I discovered another list that I had written for 2011… One that I had completely forgotten about. I unfolded this list and went through the items one by one, and with each line I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I had in fact achieved them without even trying. By osmosis, I had had a very productive and rewarding year, achieving all but one of the major steps I had planned for myself. I proudly ticked these items off, and filed the list away in a drawer.

So, now that I’m roughly half way into 2012, I’ve looked back and realized that I’ve indeed come a long way…

I now have a clearer picture than ever in terms of where I want to go.

That leads me, in conclusion, to my photography. I started this process in late 2010 as a new hobby that quickly became a passion. I met my good friend Trey Ratcliff in October of that year, and that single meeting sent me on an incredible journey of learning and self discovery. In 12 months, I doubled my social contacts and formed some incredibly rewarding relationships with new friends. Along the way, I refined my tastes and formed myself a particular style that seemed to please my audience…

As with all things in life, however, we encounter change. Like the peak and trough of a wave, my passion for photography recently fell into a bit of a slump – partially brought on by practical experiences in the field. Another change occurred when I stopped feeling sorry for myself as a result of this slump, and started applying my energy to other ares of my life that were expanding – this I will cover in part two of this post, when I take about some recent business endeavors.

To paraphrase my dad, I moved photography, or, more specifically, my feelings towards photography, out of my circle of control and into my circle of influence. And with that, I’ve come back full circle and once again feel the passion for going out and capturing what has always been my mission; the world through my eyes.

My eyes are changing, and with that in mind, so will my results.

I’m less willing than ever to accept results that don’t meet my expectations. I have a lot going on in life currently that take priority over blog posts like this, but so long as people want to read whats happening in my mind, I’m willing to share. I also plan on condensing my online presence and focusing my energy where it is most rewarding – this means I will likely disappear from a few social networks, but reappear on others – fortunately, Googling me still yields results that are all legitimate.

“The only constant is change, continuing change, inevitable change, that is the dominant factor in society today. No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not only the world as it is, but the world as it will be…”
— Isaac Asimov

This is cold comfort at times. I don’t like change. I don’t think anyone does. But I’d sooner work with these changes and move forward than ignore the potential for bigger, better and brighter things to come.

Bye for now, World.

Warbirds Over Wanaka 2012

By On · 5 Comments · In Aviation, Central Otago, Landscapes, Photography, Travel, Wanaka

Last weekend I attended an event that only happens once every two years, Warbirds Over Wanaka. This air show is by far the largest in New Zealand, and is held biannually over the easter weekend. Foot traffic through the gates over the three days is well over 80,000 people. And for the weekend it is held, Wanaka Airport becomes a haven for aviation enthusiasts from all over the globe…

My experiences at Warbirds have been some genuinely treasured memories growing up. Living only 45 minutes drive from the front gate, I highly anticipate the visit to Wanaka every two years and love taking in the sights and sounds brought on by the unique collection of aircraft at the show. Unique to Warbirds are the genuine WWI and WWII fighters and transport aircraft, while many air shows worldwide feature many modern jet fighters, Warbirds is home to some of the most classic aircraft from ages past.

The displays are put on by pilots from all over the world, but with many based in New Zealand. During the show, the airfield is transformed to host the thousands of people spectating the event. Trade shows, static aircraft displays, and more can be found lining the runway. This years event was somewhat subdued in its nature, but there was a specify focus on the 75th anniversary of the Royal New Zealand Air Force.

Conditions on the day left a lot to be desired… Photographers will know how much of a menace a pure blue sky and harsh lighting can be when shooting aircraft. I was restricted to looking towards the eastern end of Runway 29 for the majority of the show, my photos from the opposite direction were mostly unusable given the angle of the sun. This Seasprite Helicopter made a low pass and gave me an opportunity to get my exposure settings sorted during the earlier part of the show.

Also challenging was the dust from aircraft taxiing back to the parking area… However in some cases it offered a little creative potential as seen here with the landing light of this P-51D Mustang, the ‘Dove of Peace’.

If I had to pick a favorite aircraft from the WWII era, the Corsair would easily claim the title. I’m in love with its swept wings and beautiful profile when viewed head on. It also represents the 1940s equivalent to modern carrier-based fighter aircraft. The wings could be folded up to save space on deck, a rather remarkable feat of engineering given the technology at the time… Today, the retired F-14 Tomcat and its replacement, the F-18 Hornet can trace their roots back to this aircraft…

With lighting conditions giving me limited views of the Warbirds performing their displays overhead, I turned my attention to those operating closer to me, either landing or taxiing back to the parking area. On the fence line, I was able to see and hear these fantastic machined up close and personal.

Although not as exciting as some past shows, Warbirds Over Wanaka 2012 was a pretty awesome experience and a chance to view these unique and classic aircraft in all their operational glory. I think its very important to keep historical aircraft such as these in working conditions so future generations can appreciate the historical relevance and see how far we have come in such a short space of time.

Updating my blog has slipped a bit lately, with business and other commitments taking priority while I get some things sorted for the new tax year. This week I’ve ticked off an important step in my endeavors, and that is setting up a Limited Liability Company for me to operate under. My photography will always be a passion, but I’m slowly moving into a more professional realm of operating where my works will be available for sale and my services for hire. This is alongside my existing consultancy endeavors… I’m basically restricting everything to operate more efficiently and professionally. Sadly this comes hand in hand with a decent amount of paperwork – oh well!

If you enjoyed this series of photos, please leave a comment to let me know!

Mountain Flying at NZQN

By On · Add Comment · In Aviation, Canterbury, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

It’s about time I made an update! For the past week I’ve been in Christchurch taking a much needed break from the chaos that is life here in Queenstown… More on that later. This photo comes to you from Runway 23 at Queenstown Airport – a 30 second drive from my studio – where I frequently hang out shooting aircraft on approach like this C-130 Hercules.

Flying has been a big part of my life, I started while I was 13, and while I’m yet to tick off the license after all these years, I’ve flown many different airframes and had some pretty awesome experiences! This photo was taken last year at the end of the airport runway, visible from my balcony.

The Royal Australian Air Force frequents Queenstown (NZQN) to undertake mountain flying training and various other technical flight practice. The Wakatipu basin is one of the most challenging environments to fly in, few international runways are situated so close to towering mountains that give you no room to move. It’s somewhat second nature to me, having flown around here since I was about 14 years old, but when landing at other airfields I find it very unusual not having the Remarkables a few hundred feet off your wingtip!

When an interesting aircraft such as this visits, they usually hang around for a while, circuiting the airfield and practicing approaches, so it gives me plenty of time to get my camera and make a short drive to the runways edge. Sadly, they’ve cordoned off the area I used to spectate from, so I can only get so close these days… This photo was taken with my 70-200mm f/4L.

Interesting enough, I processed this photo entirely in Lightroom. I usually reserve this for social photos or non-publishable works, but in this case I simply messed with the color balance and gave the image a very de-saturated military look before applying a vignette…

Adventures in Christchurch

While in Christchurch I had the pleasure of spending time with fellow photographers Simon Morris and Nikita Oliver. Simon and I spent the first few days of my trip making our way around the North Canterbury, waking at 5am to shoot sunrises and staying up late discussing the next days adventures.

Pictured here is Simon, on the beach as the sun peaked over the horizon on my last day with him. This was a pretty awesome scene – I really look forward to seeing both our individual results!

On my first morning, we awoke to rain which essentially canceled out the sunrise, so we ended up sitting in the car waiting for it to clear before making our way down what can only be describes as a muddy cliff to the waterfront.

As the sky opened up, more and more of the landscape came into view, and we made our way up and down the coast shooting everything from waves to sea lions before moving inland.

One of the things I find frustrating about the landscape down here is that everything is very similar – you need to venture quite far out of Queenstown to get away from the hugh mountains and rock formations. Granted its a very spectacular landscape, but its nice to see a horizon once in a while! Being up north was quite refreshing, getting to see the extremes of the Canterbury landscape while exploring various backroads and inconspicuous points on the map…

The following day, Nikita and I met up for a glass of wine after work and discussed new lenses and various photography related topics. She actually takes credit for getting me into this game – her photos on Facebook originally inspired me to pick up a camera and start shooting myself. This was way back in 2007 or thereabouts – so thanks, Nikita!

It’s great when I see emerging photographers such as herself trying new techniques and learning by doing. So many people focus too hard on ‘button pushing’ instead of actually understanding the theory behind an art – then putting what they learn into practice. Its a fine balance, but I think its the best way to learn and gather new skills and experience.

Understandably, its very easy to get disheartened when results don’t come out the way you anticipated, even I get this problem. But from every shoot I do, I walk away having learned something that I can apply to the next one…

I’ll follow up with more stories from this trip up north, I had a great time with my friends up there and plan to return as soon as possible! I don’t really have any excuse given how cheap airfares are these days, do I? ;-)

Secrets on the Clutha Riverbank

By On · 3 Comments · In Central Otago, Cromwell, HDR, Photography, Travel, Tutorials

This is a bit of a long post… But I figured it was about time I gave readers some more info about my workflow and a few tips – more on that after the break! This photo is one I’ve been looking to publish for quite some time. Mainly because I really like it, and those close to me will know it’s very rare for me to feel an image is ‘complete’ – so often I find myself wishing I had done more to perfect the result, despite them sitting in my post-processing pile for months on end…

The other reason I’m happy to be publishing this is a bit strange, but it has to do with a cool story I’ve come up with to do with the bunker you see above. Ever since I was young, I’ve been fascinated with the infrastructure surrounding the Clyde Dam and its surrounding landscape. In 1982, construction of the dam began further down the Clutha River from Cromwell. Over the next decade the surrounding landscape was changed drastically to support the project, with the most significant change coming in the form of a man-made artificial lake that forced an entire town to relocate to higher ground.

Dotted among the landscape are various hatchways and tunnels leading into the mountainside – like this one. There is also a mysterious looking feature that covers half a mountain in concrete. Having grown up watching shows like Stargate SG-1, I’ve often found myself thinking that the dam, its artificial lake and tunnels leading into the mountains would make a very cool secret military base, perhaps covering up for something the public isn’t supposed to know?

In reality, I’m sure these tunnels are innocent geological sites that are in place to support the fragile mountainside following mans influence on the landscape – but I’d love for someone to get creative and make something out of these unique features…

The new Cheyenne Mountain Complex perhaps? ;-)

Post Processing

Occasionally I’ll expand on a post such as this one and go a little more in-depth as to how I came across this particular look and feel. The problem with this photo however, is that I really did bugger all to it… After processing the 13 original frames in Photomatix, I was left with a result that really looked great. The Photoshop document has only 5 layers, one of which is the original HDR. I didn’t need to do any noise reduction, and in the end all I did was back off the deep blue sky and make the door of the bunker a little cooler, bringing it in line with the vent on top.

Props to my mate Michael Eden (no relation, he’s got my first name as his last…) for his eye on this. I rely on people like him to give me objectionable criticism and offer suggestions as to how an image could be improved. So often its the smallest change that makes all the difference – thanks bro!

One thing I will touch on is the relationship between the various stages of my workflow:

When I bring the images in off my camera, I use Adobe Lightroom exclusively to manage and organize the photos. As a past Aperture user, I swear by Lightroom and I’d be lost without its functionality and processing power. I have an organizational system that I’ve perfected over time, and when its time to work on a series of photos I’ll move them into one of the sub-folders in my ‘~Processing Directory’ and use the Photomatix Plugin to merge them into an HDR.

Photomatix works so well with Lightroom… Although the actual merge is done in a dedicated environment, the resulting file is passed back to Lightroom and automatically stacked with the original. The stop over here is temporary, and when the time is right, the TIFF file will once again be exported (this time to Photoshop) for its initial treatment.

The beauty of TIFF files is that they retain the layer structure you build in Photoshop, so its very easy to go back and work with originals, making finer and finer tweaks as time goes on. On average, I spend anywhere from 2 to 5 hours working on a single image. Most of this is Photoshop time, although the final step in my workflow has recently become a return trip to Lightroom for the final treatment.

To quote a friend of mine; “there is  a good reason Adobe makes Lightroom…” – I admit I hadn’t given this a huge amount of thought, but it makes perfect sense. Lightroom is just better at some things. The control it has over RAW files is nothing short of brilliant, and some of the finer image finishing controls like skin softening and vignetting rival the best plugins one could buy for Photoshop.

Finally, I use Lightroom to upload the final result to various web services including Smugmug, Flickr, 500px and Facebook.

So, its a bit of a cycle really… I think of Lightroom as the main junction where everything meets, and the other elements of my workflow compliment its feature set to perform specific tasks.

Bracketing with the Promote Control

This section will eventually become a fully-fledged review and tutorial on how I use this thing… I’ll be the first to put my hand up and admit that I’ve been slack at getting said review out to the masses – but I want to do it once and do it right, like everything I take on.

A recent comment on a YouTube video I published several months ago prompted me to explain something I’ve promised to do several times; my practice when bracketing using this wonderful tool. I’ve been know to use a varied range of settings, but one has been queried several times, and that is my tendency to shoot scenes stepping only by 0.3EV:

As you can see in this animation, this HDR is comprised of 13 individual frames from approximately -2EV to +2EV or 1/1250th to 1/80th of a second. The reason I frequently do this is two-fold:

Firstly, I find is gives me finer control over the final result. In scenes where noise and image artifacts could become a problem, the more frames I take, the more leverage I have against these issues in post. A large number of frames also helps even out tonal range and reduces the sometimes harsh transition from light to dark common in HDR.

Secondly, because I can. The more information I have to work with, the better. Its clear that both Canon and Nikon have a stance against proper bracketing capabilities in ‘prosumer’ cameras like my 7D – and using a tool like the Promote is a bit of a f*ck you to them.

With the announcement of the 5D Mark III and subsequent revelations about it’s HDR mode, I’m giving serious thought to making the jump up to the big league – but even then I would likely utilize the features the Promote offers, as it has forced me to slow down and focus on what it is I’m trying to achieve when shooting a scene – something that improves not only my results, but the experience I have when out in the field.

In this photo specifically, the 13 brackets helped me capture the subtle tonal ranges in the rock and the texture in the steel door. Had I encountered problems with the image in post, I’d have several suitable frames to draw information from and render the image usable. This often isn’t the case when you only have a few photos to work with.

Thats all I have for now… One thing I have been meaning to do is put together a set of tutorials that cover all the various parts of my workflow in-depth. Thats a project I’m spending a good deal of time on, but while photography is officially a hobby for me, real life sometimes takes priority and forces me to put those kind of documents on hold until I have the time and resources to focus on them.

Stay tuned though! I’ve got plenty of cool stuff coming up.

The Frozen Road to Moke Lake

By On · 5 Comments · In HDR, Landscapes, Moke Lake, Photography, Queenstown, Travel

I’m publishing this photo out of pure frustration! It’s early March, and down here in New Zealand I’m still waiting for the arrival of summer… The weather has been warm, but there has been an utter lack of calm days where I can enjoy being on the lake waterskiing. So, I’m mentally preparing myself for another one of these winters, where everything freezes for a couple of days, but the rest of the time the weather is calm and the lake flat. Shame the water temperature would kill you, otherwise I’d waterski all year round…

If it looks like I stopped before reaching my goal in this photo – its because I did. The angle I could shoot in this scenes was fundamentally limited because, well, my car was stuck. It only happened twice last winter, and this was the only time it was my fault. As the light was fading I realized I was loosing traction fast and decided to turn back while I could – and had I decided to do so about 100 meters behind me, I’d have escaped without need for a tow by a farmer who happened to be passing by. My car suffered a little damage, but not as much as my pride.

I intend to return to Moke Lake in the not too distant future, and perhaps shoot this angle again to give you a little context as to what you are looking at. Interestingly enough, although the clouds in this photo look a little like a bomb going off over the distant mountains, I did absolutely nothing to them in post – this was just one of those sunsets that makes you look twice as it casts a rather interesting light over the landscape…

Metadata:
7 Exposures
(From 1/1600th to 1/125th)
f/8.0, ISO 100 

If you enjoyed this photo, please click here to leave me a comment and let me know!

Moonlit Waters at Rat Point

By On · Add Comment · In Astrophotography, Landscapes, Long Exposure, Photography, Queenstown, Travel, Tutorials

I’ve been wanting to revisit my passion for Astrophotography for quite a while now… In the past, I’ve taken photos of the stars both with and without the landscape in the foreground, but never felt I’d balanced it quite right or pulled off the effect I was after. This photo ticks most of those boxes, but sadly not all of them…

During the holidays, several of my friends were in town for the Christmas and New Year period, and we spent most of our nights either sitting behind my desk creating stuff, hunting or taking interesting photos. This was one such night, when myself and good friends Ciaran Jack and Nick Stone went on a dedicated astrophotography mission towards Glenorchy. As much as I enjoy spontaneous adventures, I do find it helpful to occasionally plan one’s evenings and have an objective in mind. Of course this planning can be completely derailed when you are all set to go and realize you have no memory cards on you… But never mind!

We spent over an hour framing this photo – running various test exposures using Ciaran’s 60D and my Canon 17-40mm f/4L – but as is the case with all astro photos, once you hit the shutter button all you can do is cross your fingers and hope for the best. This hoping is made worse by the fact that once the exposure is done, you have another hour or so to wait before the camera finishes a dark-frame noise reduction process that doubles the exposure time and damn near kills the battery. So in the future, I plan to carry a second body with me to effectively double my chances of a usable photo. In my experience, the ratio of usable astro photos to ones I throw out is roughly 5 to 1 – and thats a depressing number when you realize how many hours go into shots like this!

I’ve had a bit of trouble getting this photo to look half decent when exported as a JPEG from Lightroom and uploaded directly to Smugmug (where I host my originals for safe keeping). One issue with JPEGs is that they seem incompatible with subtle gradients in a clear blue sky… Normally a condition that is saved for the middle of the day – not 3am as is the case above ;-)

In the end I opted to compromise on the quality and upload the file manually while still keeping the original on Smugmug for safe keeping. You can view it at 100% by clicking here and check out all the goodies in the distant landscape – just a warming, this is a big image file and may take forever to load…

New Tutorial: Star Trails

I finished writing this last night… Its rather long, but thats my intention for this new breed of in-depth tutorial that go into elaborate detail. When I was learning this stuff, I made many mistakes through trial and error – mostly because I wasn’t able to find the sort of resources that outlined not only the process but the technical aspects of why you would do one thing and not the other, why you would use this aperture, this ISO, this exposure time.

I do my best to answer all those questions, and share my tips and techniques that result in photos like the one above… To read the tutorial, click the image below. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it!

 

The Perfect Storm: Cecil Peak

By On · 4 Comments · In HDR, Landscapes, Photography, Queenstown, Reviews, Travel

Occasionally I’ll take a series of photos in a short space of time that all related to one another… In this case, this week’s post is a followup to one I made late last year entitled ‘The Perfect Storm’ in which I detail the bitter winter we had during the weeks of  August. The crazy weather managed to shut down most of the town for a day or two, and many people had their ability to drive in snow tested to the extreme – with some rather unfortunate results in cases where tourists thought they knew what they were doing!

Once the fronts had moved on and the sun was allowed to sneak through the clouds, we were rewarded with a spectacular winter wonderland, where the snow line came right down to the waterline – in the case of Lake Wakatipu, this is 310m above sea level, something that happens very rarely. Even more incredible however, was how long this spectacular view remained. It’s not uncommon to get heavy snowfall once or twice a tear, but typically the snow melts within a few days. In this case, it lasted a lot longer and provided some unique opportunities to capture the Wakatipu Basin in a new way.

Pictured here is Cecil Peak, reaching an elevation of 1974m at it highest point, just near the middle of the frame. I was intrigued by the many different cloud layers – several of which are out of frame and behind the camera, hence the odd shadows on the mountain side. I shot a time-lapse of this scene (something I might post in the future) where you can see the lake being blown in one direction, the clouds moving in another, and the clouds above them moving in yet another random direction… Coupled with the reflection on that lake, it was quite a bizarre scene!

Blog Updates

Regular readers will know I endeavor to update this blog on a weekly basis… I’m finding this works well, and allows me to put out content regularly without compromising my standards of quality. I’ve been a little behind schedule lately due to commitments in ‘real life’ that have prevented me from getting out to take new photos and keep working on existing ones in my library.

One thing I’d like to make clear is that photography is a hobby for me at this stage… It’s not a commercial endeavor. If people wish to buy prints, they contact me personally about it. Hence me no longer directly linking to the copies of my photos hosted on SmugMug for purchase. The reason I’m doing this is simple: I don’t feel the I have the infrastructure in place to ‘go commercial’ just yet. I’m slowly putting these bits and pieces in place – the largest of which is a new website design to go along with salable things like eBooks and tutorials that I’ve been working on for some time. Over the next couple of months I plan on putting these things in place, it’s a bit of a mission!

When I’m not taking photos or working on this blog, I spend the majority of my time working with our business interests here in Queenstown and doing a lot of other creative stuff like web design or logo development with friends. When not being productive, I’m out hunting or socializing with the same friends while they are on break from University.

Just a little insight into what goes on for me behind the scenes!

TopoMap – Very cool!

I thought I’d take a minute to promote this very cool website I use quite often: www.topomap.co.nz

When hunting out locations for photos or locating specific landmarks (such as Cecil Peak as mentioned above), sometimes Google Earth doesn’t cut it and I need a more capable tool. This is especially helpful when looking for rivers or trying to determine the elevation of mountains and so on. This certainly beats pulling out massive paper maps to find your way around! See if you can figure out where I was standing to take the photo above, it shouldn’t be too hard!

Please click here to leave me a comment if you enjoyed this photo.