I've wanted a drone for awhile now but have held off until the software was smarter. Mostly because previous experiences with flying things remotely has never really gone well for me, and flying $4,000+ over a cliff does not appeal to my inner Scrooge.  The DJI Spark was released which not only has intelligent flight modes, but an excellent return-to-home feature which appealed as a place to start.  Day 1 I almost lost a finger. A month or so later I pulled a muscle, or nerve or something, jumping a fence to retrieve the drone from the gorse dense bush behind my house.  And finally To View More >>

Verona, the city of Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet and also the name of an essential Kiwi song. I won't get into which is better, because Mercutio and his plague would rain on all of our houses, but you can't possibly be a kiwi and not sing Verona every chance you get while there.  The train ride wasn't that long but due to large quantities of prosecco and strawberries I slept most of the way. Emma, charming soul that she is, documented the trip for me in a series of snaps. Mostly of me sleeping. But she's creative, and made sure to use snapchat filters. She's good like that.  To View More >>

Spinning up some sunrise We were booked to stay in Guesthouse Gerði in between Jökulsárlón  and the village of Höfn. After being blown away by the Glacier Lagoon, the bar was set pretty high. As the sun set over Höfn, the sky lit up. Not with the Northern Lights, but with the last rays of the day.  The Þórbergur Center is a cultural centre with an exhibition dedicated to the Iceland writer Þórbergur Þórðarson (1888 – 1974) who grew up in the area. The centre is home to a restaurant as well with the To View More >>

A Ghostly Procession After departing the national park, soaking wet and hallucinating moving mountains, we set off to the next accomodation. The one downside to travelling Iceland in the winter is how dark it gets so quickly. We chose winter for a chance of seeing the Northern Lights but this did mean that the days were short. Because of this we had planned to view the Glacier Lagoon the next morning but as we passed by it to get to the Guesthouse the sight of colossal chunks of glacial ice floating in a lagoon as the sun was starting to set was too much to pass up.  Jökulsárlón To View More >>

Visited Iceland in November and it was stunningly beautiful. Unfortunately it rained (and POURED) most of the time we were there so I did not get as many photos as I would have liked but the experience itself was incredible.  After landing in Keflavik International Airport the lovely Odin from Ace Rental Cars collected us from the airport and took us to their office to pick up our rental car. This meant no waiting in queues at the airport and Odin was friendly and helped us start off in the right direction. Ace is a family owned business and they were lovely to deal with. I had planned To View More >>

The arena being flooded this week after all the rain made for some cool reflection shots of Sparky and his owner Tammy this weekend.  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 >>

There have been many occasions where the day after a shoot I've been almost unable to walk. There is no gym work out that can match a full day shooting a car. Weddings are similar. Back when I shot those too, I had to clear the next day on my calendar. Not only for sleep but usually because my legs were pretty much useless. Cars are an especially good workout though, I'm not sure even the most keen cross-fitter could keep up with a photographer on a full day shoot for a car. The constant getting up and down to get the angles and lighting is good for the muscles! So when Mike showed me this photo 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 >>

I picked up a linear bearing rail system through my friend Andy to trial for video and time-lapse photography. My first test was just around the house. The bonus to this over traditional sliders is these glide rather than roll or slide, which gives a very smooth movement.  I had an acrylic base plate made to mount a ball head on to the bearings block and picked up a Benro BH-1 with quick release from Apix Photographic Supplies to mount my camera. Will post separately about putting the rail together. Above is the small demo clip put together from the test. Quite happy so far with To View More >>