Approaching city lights, Manawatu. 7.06 pm, 6 August 2012 Fall seven times, stand up eight! –  Japanese proverb 85mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f9. Incandescent light balance      

To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.  –  Joseph Addison Driving north in the early evening, I paused on a 2 km disused section of the old highway, quaint now for its narrowness and rustic one-lane bridge. The night was cold and moonless, with a constant […]

[Only the camera can express] the full majesty of the moment. –  Paul Leopold Rosenfeld Looking down on the tops of the persimmon. You can only do this on a very still night, as the slightest breeze blurs the detail. However, to get a really creative blur, you need a gusty evening – nothing in-between […]

I can gather all the news I need on the weather report.  –  Paul Simon (The Only Living Boy in New York) Still lifes by moonlight are formidable propositions because of the problems in seeing what you have, particularly with close framing and the shallow depth of field of a mild telephoto. This scene was […]

 I see magic in the quiet light of dusk.  –  John  Sexton 85mm; ISO 250. 30 seconds at f16. Incandescent light balance

Photographing at night can be fascinating because we lose some of the control over what happens in front of the camera.  –  Michael Kenna  28mm, ISO 2000. 464 seconds (7 min 44 sec) at f13. Sodium vapour light balance      

Ah the moon’s too bright, the chain’s too tight, the beast won’t go to sleep… – Leonard Cohen (I’m Your Man) 85mm; ISO 500. 294 seconds (5 mins) at f16  

 The future will be better tomorrow.  –  Dan Quayle  50mm, ISO 2000. 8 seconds at f2.8. Light balance 3030 deg K

Each of us is born into an already existent conversation.  –  Martin Heidegger 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f16. Light balance 2500 deg K.    

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.  –  Emily Dickinson 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f4  

Yet my moon always hung faithfully in the sky: constant companion, luminous and remote, gentle symbol of mystery, femininity and noctural wisdom.  –  Michael Leunig 85mm, ISO 2000. 10 secs at f8  

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end. – Ursula K. Le Guin 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f7.1. Flash      

 The problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it. – Salvadore Dali 50mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f11. Flash  

To make the truth more plausible, it is absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it.  –  Dostoevsky Staying three nights this week at Marahau, gateway to Abel Tasman National Park (Nelson), we had lovely evenings “to behold the waxing moon”. At Kaka Pa Point we discovered an easy path down to a sandy cove, Breaker Bay, above which […]

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.  –  Helen Keller 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f16

All living creatures are making a great endeavour, struggling, to attain real everlasting happiness.  –  Srila Narayana Maharaja Happiness through illusion? This actually is twilight, but stirred with the flash for foreground and then thoroughly shaken in post-pro. The original sky is very blue because I was trying a tungsten light balance. However I wanted something more […]

What you do comes from what you think.  –  A Course in Miracles 85mm, ISO 2000. 13 secs at f11. Incandescent light balance

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and the goal of a good intention was never reached through its opposite, laziness.  –  Cervantes, 1615 85mm, ISO 2000. 1/500th sec at f5.6

If only I could stand on a street corner with my hat in my hand, and get people to throw their wasted time into it!  –  Bernard Berenson, U.S. art critic Taken last year at Te Hapu, Golden Bay and recalled by our more recent stay. Moonset before midnight always means a crescent moon, a simple […]

 Life is a badly edited film.  –  Fernando Trueba This was taken without using a tripod or cable release – just holding the camera open on B, on a guard rail on the Cook Strait ferry, has done the trick. The cloud is lit by moonlight, the lower part of the image must be the motorway the […]

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances.  –  Martha Washington, American First Lady. 85mm, ISO 320. 5 secs @ f5.6. Col balance 8330 deg K  

What’s gone and what’s past help, should be past grief.  –  William Shakespeare 50mm, ISO 2000. 2.5 secs at f4  

  With your silhouette when the sunlight dims, into your eyes when the moonlight swims, and your matchbook songs and gypsy hymns: Who among them would try to impress you? –  Bob Dylan (Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands) 85mm, ISO 2000. 5 secs at f11

If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.  –  Regina Brett, at 90 85mm, ISO 2000. 10 secs at f1.4

Start every day with a smile and get it over with.  –  W.C. Field 85mm, ISO 2000. 1/13th sec at f7.1. Flash, 10000 deg K