TBT: Christchurch 2008 Back in 2008 I finally got to visit Christchurch. My cousin and I went down to celebrate my birthday and while the cold temperature was a bit of a shock to my JAFA disposition, it was rather beautiful.  Being that it was 2008, it was before the earthquake took Christ Church Cathedral away from the city. My cousin and I walked the stairs to the top of the cathedral and with hindsight as wonderful as it is, I'm glad we did it. Though, this is the second time I have made the decision to climb an architectural landmark at the last minute, only to have it come To View More >>

New Backyard, New Visitors Last year I posted about a pretty cool visitor to my backyard (check it out here) and when I had to move from Whenuapai I was a little bit disappointed that living closer to the city I might not get as many opportunities to see New Zealand bird life quite as close up.  My first day in the new house brought with it some beautiful Kingfishers flying about outside the kitchen window. I was busy unpacking however, so just took it as a good sign of things to come.  So the bad news first. Having an (incredibly small) portion of bush area behind your house isn't To View More >>

Happy Anniversary Day Auckland!  Here's a shot of some of the wildlife that comes and hangs out in my back yard in Whenuapai. What do you get in yours? To View More >>

Living in Auckland often earns you the derision of the rest of the country, but it's home and I love it. I don't doubt the beauty of the rest of the country, NZ is beautiful, but Auckland has it's little gems too. One of those places for me has always been Bomb Point. Up until recently Bomb Point has been open to the public. Thanks to urban sprawl and the current construction going on over there, it's been closed off, so I was pretty lucky one of my previous flatmates showed it to me before that happened. It's 11 hectares of land, at what used to be a munitions dump for the Royal New Zealand To View More >>

An experiment with time In my spare time I've been experimenting with time-lapse photography. Specifically, with alternative methods to motion time-lapse that don't require the very expensive sliders, motors and rigs that are currently available on the market.  Through my friend Andy I was able to pick up a rail and bearings block set thingy (technical terms!) which I have made some minor modifications to. This enabled me to make some very smooth panning videos, and now I'm trialing it for motion time-lapse.  I've still got some issues to iron out but so far so good.  To View More >>

It's not often I'm out of a coverage zone for any length of time and never usually in a place that I would describe as breath taking. Pawarenga, in the very far north of the North Island of New Zealand, definitely fit that description.  My cousin and I made the journey, getting up very early in the morning to this beautiful sunrise. A stunning start to a long drive.  Many hours, and a very long and windy drive, later we made it to the bay and marae at Pawarenga where my cousin's family are from. The area is simply amazing. The historic St Gabriel's Church (featured in the David To View More >>

In the past few years I have decided to expore a bit of New Zealand and one long Easter Weekend I took off to the Bay of Islands with some friends. The very first day, I was standing with my back to the window chatting to Mickey as he managed to spit out the words, "camera, sunset, now". Spinning around, this is the view that greeted me. I raced down to the beach and managed to catch this single shot before the light disappeared completely for the day.  The next day my friends decided that one of the things we should do while on holiday in the Bay of Islands was to go sailing, I was less than To View More >>