SEPTEMBER in my 2019 calendar! Lake Mahinapua is the first stop after Hokitika as you head south down the South Island’s West Coast. Surrounded by native forest, the lake’s a total gem left to us by the last glacial retreat ten thousand years ago. On a weekday morning in April there are few camper vans […]

Odd neighbours at Greymouth. 6.37pm, 10 April 2018 The neighbourhood of New Zealand cemeteries can be quite quirky, especially in the larger cities, but even in Greymouth a cross can have an industrial background. Land bordering cemeteries is less desired for housing, so perhaps becomes more affordable for industry, or other purposes.  The cross is […]

Rarely have I taken such a strange, otherworldly scene such as this. The funereal gold, grey and alabaster are relieved only by the faint sunset and the industrial background. In using flash I could easily have hand-held the shot; instead I struggled to compose on a tripod (already set up for long exposure possibilities). Flash […]

I have begun a new project: a series of cameos from New Zealand cemeteries, taken by day and night, styled under the Latin term above. No longer a common phrase, memento mori  translates to “Remember that you have to die”, meant as a reflection on our inevitable mortality. Cemeteries, and particularly older ones, are sanitised theme […]

As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be, you can’t see how it is.   – Ram Dass 28mm; ISO 2000. 94 seconds at f8. Light balance 3030 deg K.  

 Just keep going. No feeling is final.  –  Rainer Maria Rilke 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f4. Light balance 3030 deg K  

Elf-portrait or self-portrait? Pricks of moongleam on the boathouse deck, in sepia

Kahikatea framed by a West Coast canyon; trouble with really long exposures

Full moon in low-rent country, West Coast, without banjos