8075 Hauraki moonlit selfie, to tow truck soundtrack This is the last frame from a series I took from Achilles Point, a suburban vantage point at St Heliers, Auckland. The view is east, towards Brown’s Island (Motukorea), with Great Barrier Island on the far horizon. More a matter of record than any artistic statement, this […]

8254. Marahau moonlight, Nelson. 9.21pm, 13 July 2014 While the others snuggled down to watch rugby on TV, I ventured out into the cool evening and walked towards the Abel Tasman. I followed a shoreline lapped by tiny surf, and set my tripod in the sand every few minutes, only to discover that my lens […]

Rangitoto from Achilles Pt, Auckland. Two frames merged into one, so same ferry twice – each exposure is 30 seconds, by moonlight. The Point is at St Heliers; it’s a good lookout as long as you don’t get caught (as I did) by the local council’s draconian parking restrictions. Park well down the street!  

7707. Claire & co at Whatipu A discrete chair in the Whatipu wilderness puts you one step ahead in the relaxed model stakes – as does a warm coat – but the secret ingredient to portrait work seems to be having an accomplice, one who distracts the subject with lively conversation while the photographer pretends […]

7790. Signs and sacrifices A pause in readings from the Little Book of Sacrifices. A simple lateral flick-trick found online has brought out some unexpected imagery, while a slight re-framing avoids complete symmetry. A warm duotone was selected after conversion from the colour original. The hand-colouring is hardly brilliant, but this looks to be a […]

7780. Reading the Little Book of Calm Or something like it. Claire is distracted with readings from a good book. Light ent., relief and engagement shine through as the drizzle descends. Low angle with tripod; wide angle lens predictably highlights her fine hands; her hair is emphasised by post-pro desaturation and selective re-saturation. An important […]

7701. Claire and pal at Whatipu Whatipu is a vast expanse of beach and wetland on Auckland’s west coast. It’s a wild place and amazingly changed since my first visit over 40 years ago – wider and wetter, it is now also far more vegetated. On a winter’s afternoon we barely sampled the place – […]

Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week. –  Spanish proverb 85mm; ISO 640. 8 seconds at f5.6. Sodium vapour light balance

 Light tomorrow with today. – Elizabeth Barrett Browning 28mm; ISO 400. 30 seconds at f16

 There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.  –  Rachel Carson, Silent Spring 85mm; ISO 1000. 30 seconds at f11. Sodium vapour light balance

What we call reality is an agreement that people have arrived at to make life more liveable.  –  Louise Nevelson (US photographer) 50mm; ISO 2000. 15 seconds at f11. Sodium vapour light balance  

Artists are born kneeling; they fight to stand. Critics, by nature of the judgement seat, are born sitting.  –  Hortense Calisher (US novelist) [adapted] 50mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f16. Sodium vapour light balance

Those who wish to sing, always find a song.  –  Swedish proverb 50mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f5.6

 Meditate. Live purely. Be quiet. Do your work with mastery. Like the moon, come out from behind the clouds! Shine. –  Buddha (attrib.) 85mm; ISO 1000. 63 seconds at f2.5. Sodium vapour light balance

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.  –  Oscar Wilde 85mm; ISO 2000. 1/400th sec at f9

Good friends, good books, and a sleepy conscience: this is the ideal life. –  Mark Twain 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f8

And the only sound that’s left / After the ambulances go Is Cinderella sweeping up / On Desolation Row.  –  Bob Dylan 28mm; ISO 2000. 68 seconds at f8

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      

Whenever I feel the need to exercise, I lie down until it goes away – Robert M. Hutchins 28mm; ISO 2000. 20 seconds at f5.6  

Nothing is ever the same twice because everything is always gone forever, and yet each moment has infinite photographic possibilities. – Michael Kenna  28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f5.6  

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 […]

The illiteracy of the future will be ignorance not of reading or writing, but of photography. –      László Moholy-Nagy (Weimar photographer, 1926) Oh for a rising moon behind! But there was heavy overcast – and anyway, the moon was yet to rise. By the way, a big moon rising after dark is past […]

 I often think that the night is more alive and more richly colored than the day.  –  Vincent van Gogh 28mm; ISO 2000. 66 seconds at f10

 At their best, photographs as symbols not only serve to help illuminate some of the darkness of the unknown, they also serve to lessen the fears that too often accompany the journeys from the known to the unknown. – Wynn Bullock 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f11

The moon develops the imagination, as chemicals develop photographic images. – Sheila Ballantyne 28mm; ISO 2000. 1/1.3rd second at f18. Flash