I wrote this from the seat of my returning flight so it might be a little dodgy but looking back at the past 10 days I have got a number of great shots as well as visiting a heap of the island. The South Island of New Zealand is a place that you cannot conquer in 10 days or even a few months there is simply too much to see and do. I would love to spend 6 months travelling and photographing the island. The highlight of the trip was yesterday morning when I awoke to the sound of my alarm not knowing where I was and what was happening, I soon realised that I had three shots left on my panoramic and it was time to get up. I really wanted a different view of Lake Tekapo but every possible angle has been shot a million times by a million different people. With the temperature at around negative 2 degrees I don the thermals and gloves and head down to a spot I had seen the day before which had a heap of potential if the conditions were right and they were. I scrambled down over frosted ground to the lakes edge and I can’t find the right composition so in a bit of a panic I told myself to slow down, I set up my tripod in the lakes water and find the composition I am after and begin to wait for the light to do something. Just to set the scene, the lake is perfectly still, just a hint of a breeze but not enough to break the mirror that the lake had become snow capped mountains in the reflections and perfect wispy cloudy spread across the whole sky, I would have thought this was a dream but the burn of the cold air against my face and ears was telling me otherwise.

The sky began to slowly light up and I was hoping it was going to light up whole sky but wasn’t sure if the colour would make it to the top of my frame BOOM it does so I take a few light readings and I fire off my first exposure of 5 seconds click were done. I wind on to next photo and now the colour really starts to intensify my next two frames are at 12 seconds (f32) and the last back at 5 seconds (f22). I had just enough time to set up my digital and get a stitch happening but by this time the colours had dulled a little and the wind had picked up still worth the effort, what I shot on the panoramic will be the real winners out of this one.

Before I left for Christchurch I put a big order of film for the trip but my order of film didn’t arrive in time and I was left with only 4 rolls of 120 (16 shots). A couple nights ago I met a photographer Tom from California who was also shooting medium format, he had shot 40 rolls of 220 in 3 weeks on a 6 x 4.5 (crazy effort) he was happy with what he had got and gave me his last roll of 220 thanks a heap mate you’re a life saver.

Anyway this is my digital version of yesterday’s sunrise at Lake Tekapo. Excuse the edit is was done on the macbook so it will be a rough copy.

Details
4 image horizontal stitch
3 seconds @ F22
2 stop Lee soft ND
Canon 5D Mark 2 (24-70mm 2.8L @ 70mm)

Cheers

Darren Tierney

Sunrise over Lake Tekapo

Hey everyone,

I’m over in New Zealand at the moment on the south island and it is COLD… Anyway this is a shot of an old car I came across on the west coast there was a paddock full of cars most were a mess and not worth shooting but this one stood out so out came the camera. Hope you like it.

Cheers

Darren Tierney

Quite a few months ago I headed down to Port Macquarie for couple of days photographing, this is one of the shots I worked quickly while waiting in the airport.

Hope you like…

Darren Tierney

I had been on the Sunshine Coast all day and there was a great layer of cloud spread all across the sky, it looked like it would make for an amazing sunset but I was a little worried that it would burn off before the sunset.

I arrived at Noosa on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast just before the sunset and to my luck the sky still had the great cloud spread across it however, normally there are hundreds of volcanic boulders all along the water but this time there was a heap of sand covering them so I got down onto the sand and set up. The colour was beginning to show in the sky so I made sure I was happy with my composition and fired off a couple shots (nothing special) and waited for the colour to get better and wow it went crazy the whole sky lit up, one of the best sunsets ive seen in quite a while, I only wish I had my panoramic camera with me.

This photograph is a 3 image blend as I didn’t have my grads with me.

shot 1 – normal (minor raw adjustments)
shot 2 – normal (fill light to bring out the detail in foreground and then masked into shot)
shot 3 – 2 stops under exposed (masked in detail to the over exposed section on the right of frame)

I hope you like this one

Cheers

Darren Tierney

Last week I packed the Four wheel Drive and headed north to Fraser Island for a weeks worth of photography with Simon Beedle and Beau Mitchell. Initially it looked like we had picked the worst week of weather possible with the forecast predicting strong winds and pouring rain. After a couple days of ideal rainforest conditions there was a break in the weather and there was a hint of blue sky. Simon had this cracker of a composition in Pile Valley but with 6-8 minute exposures he wasn’t going to get the shot he was after with the patchy clouds letting the sun through and ruining any chances of an even exposure. By this time I had give up on getting a shot and headed back to the car for a quick bite whilst back at the car I got talking to the ranger about how to get into Lake McKenzie as it was closed to the public due to construction, he ended up saying that we would have to walk in and it was only about a few hundred meters from where we could park the car. Few hundred meters hey, that would have been nice it was more like 1-2 km uphill on soft sand what a mission, we ended up doing that walk twice and each time it was worth it especially the second time when we ended up getting the lake to ourselves for about an hour at midday and anyone who has been to Lake McKenzie before knows how busy this place gets so you can appreciate how lucky we were.

This trip was full of amazing shots and one of the shots that sticks in my head was capturing this dingo walking along the beach looking for some food. The dingo walked right by me within arms distance as if I wasn’t there I was blown away and wanted more shots of this relaxed dingo. This was a somewhat more pleasurable experience than my last encounter where a pack of dingos surrounded me whilst photographing the dunes last year.

Shot Details for those of you who are interested…
Canon 5D Mark 2
17-40mm F4L
Handheld
ISO 200
1/500th sec @ F5.6

Cheers

Darren Tierney

Hey everyone,

Still up at Fraser and finally got some internet, here is a quick look at a shot taken earlier this week.

Heading back tomorrow so i will have plenty to post in the coming week.

Cheers

Darren Tierney

Fraser Island