One forgives as much as one loves. –  La Rochefoucauld The old water reservoir at Nelson is a peaceful place for pic-spotting by the moonlight photographer, in part because access to it is through a motor camp. It may be needless to say, but when you’re out at night it’s important to feel safe so […]

Our wealth lies not in what we have, but in what we enjoy. –  Anonymous So where the clear light of day would need only 20 seconds for preparation and never more than a second for exposure, I choose the half-light of evening and belabour the task for far too long… It must be the […]

Three lights at Paritutu, New Plymouth. 9.36pm, 10 September 2011 I have memory, which is the idiot’s talent. –  Francisco Umbral The three lights are moonlight (at sea), nearby industrial lighting and flash for the foreground. This shot has a cool feel because the incandescent (tungsten) setting was used to cool the light on the […]

Life is made up of marble and mud. –  Nathaniel Hawthorne It’s surprising what you find close to home when you can’t venture far. Apart from their starriness, this scene matches with the previous one, Marahau before moonrise, in one  sense: use of f4. However their shutter times demonstrate how far apart light levels can […]

Somehow to capture the constantly evanescent quality of existence. – Tennessee Williams, on his goal in writing It can be a pain to wait for the moonrise on those nights following full moon – although you do get some quality time with undimmed stars and the odd cloud capture. Eventually the eastern horizon lightens and […]

Everybody has talent at 25. The difficult thing is to have it at 50. –  Edward Degas. With midnight as my deadline, this roadside shot was one of my last for this cool but lovely evening. Pheney Rd is a quiet country location but it is not far from the city and camerawork is not […]

No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted. –  Aesop Last full moon I spent many happy hours over several evenings tackling the budding magnolia next door. This one worked better at f5.6 than at f16, to my surprise, but with f16 needing nearly 5 minutes the risk of a breeze was […]

Desire is something irrational for which one always has to pay a high price. – Pedro Almodovar On biting winter evenings two strategies can help prise the moonlight photographer from homely warmth. Either go out while it’s still daylight, or stay close to home – for an easier retreat. For this extended exposure in the […]

Good sense travels on well worn paths; genius never. –  Cesar Lombroso The skies were clear but the wind was howling as I set up on the cycleway, across the way from the fertiliser works near Napier. Any shot that I failed to shelter from the windgusts was useless, so I hovered as close to […]

Strange to see how a good dinner and feasting reconciles everybody. –  Samuel Pepys, Diary 1665 “24mm”, ISO 800. 60 seconds at f2  

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. –  Albert Schweitzer 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f7.1  

Never in his life could an idiot do such foolish things as are sometimes done by nations governed by hundreds of talented people. –  Benito Perez Galdos 28mm, ISO 2000. 2 minutes at f16. Incandescent light balance.

Suburban twilight and new moon. 5.42 pm, 4 July 2011 Effort appears to be the main art of living. –  Harold Nicolson 28mm, ISO 100. 5 seconds at f22. Incandescent light balance.

[The object of art is] to make eternal the desperately fleeting moment. –                    Tennessee Williams The trick with any arc of headlights is to minimise the full-on glare of the lights, something likely to occur at some point in your frame. Here in the second frame from a moonlight sequence you see a short space […]

Everyone complains of his memory; nobody of his judgement. –  Francois de La Rochefoucauld When setting this up I wasn’t certain I was on a public road, but according to Google this is Cook Road, overlooking Waimarama on the coast. No vehicle came by the whole time, but traffic was regular on the main road […]

It is only with the heart that one can see properly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. –  Antoine de St Exupery Although my heart is in this place, in this case I saw by ear, as the swans weren’t visible by moonlight. However they were very audible, and other wetland birdlife also […]

The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise. –  Tacitus You do not have the whole evening to shoot the crescent moon – it retires early. While it’s going, though, the crescent obliges the moonlight photographer on western coasts with some great reflections. The actual light from a crescent appears to be […]

I don’t sing because I’m happy. I’m happy because I sing. – William James Ratapiko is a small hydro lake near the edge of the Taranaki ring plain, about 40 minutes northeast of New Plymouth, in a quiet country district. Quiet on a winter’s evening at least, as in season Ratapiko is popular for boating […]

The heaventree of stars hung with humid night-blue fruit. –  James Joyce Night-blue signals tungsten film! It was not something I usually shot with, but in my younger days I used whatever film was affordable. To get balanced colour in daylight you had to apply corrective filters, but none were used here, so the blues […]

I say have patience, and shuffle the cards. –  Miguel de Cervantes, 1615 From the 153 m (502 ft) summit of Paritutu, the volcanic landmark backing Port Taranaki, the coastal outlook to Oakura is affected nightly by industrial lighting. Here we look down on Beach Road, leading to a well-lit tank farm but with little […]

All along the watchtower, princes kept the view; While all the women came and went, their foot-servants too.  – Bob Dylan The surreal song lyric [misquoted on the web] fits this enigmatic view from the waterfront pavement at Kaikoura, in the South Island. The scale is ambiguous and the light unusual, but at least more […]

Tomorrow we shall set out once more upon the vast sea. –  Horace Moonrises after dark indicate the moon is past full, and these moonrises, especially, need a frame of reference. They benefit from foreground interest, in this case from outcrops alongside the wharf at Kaikoura, on the east coast of the South Island. It’s […]

All glory comes from daring to begin – Eugene F. Ware, American soldier There’s no better time for moonlight photography than when you are on holiday with a large territory you are free to wander over. Here’s a memorable evening at summer’s end with a cool southwester still about, as indicated in this well-clad group […]

The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes. – Marcel Proust Out for an evening’s recreation, I soon noticed these poplars on the fringe of New Plymouth. They are lit by the rising moon and distant street lamps, as well as the lights of a neighbouring school, […]