Autumn
Autumn. I love autumn. The turning of the leaves, the bite of polar winds sneaking up from the south. Autumn is best experienced on long dog walks in the forest,…
The Happiest Seal
Just look at that contented face. I've never seen a seal as happy as this one! We saw four types of seal while in Antarctica - Weddell, Crabeater, Fur, and…
Leaf Skeletons
Something that inspires me is the very temporary nature of everything. I also have a fondness for delicate, ephemeral things. So the small collection of skeletonised leaves that Mum has became…
Antarctic Shags – Blue-eyed beauties
The next in a series of "It's not just penguins" blogs! (Remember the Skuas? They'll get another blog post no doubt, they're so gorgeous). Antarctic Shags go by a number…
Tekapo Textures
What's most interesting about a landscape when you are in it? For me, it's all the little details, the textures that don't necessarily get picked up when you make a…
Antarctica – Snapshots
I thought we'd take a break from the more focused blogs this week. To say I took a lot of photographs in Antarctica is an understatement. For an experience like…
Mt John Observatory – Tekapo
The drive up to the Mt John Observatory is steep and winding, and seems to go on for much longer than it should. Once at the top, you're rewarded with…
Penguin Portraits
Last week I talked about using (lots of) negative space to draw attention to the important parts of a photograph, and to give an impression of the environment. This week,…
Friendly Fantails
Fantails are one of our ubiquitous native birds that are known for following people around. Friendly fantails don't really like us personally, but they do enjoy feeding on the insects…
Booth Island – Minimalism in wildlife photography
After a stunning cruise through towering icebergs, we landed on Booth Island. A wide sweep of pristine snow curved up to the Gentoo colony on the hill. By this stage…
Stargazing
A more accurate title would be "moongazing", but stargazing sounds infinitely better. On the night of the eclipse we were in Tekapo - the best place in New Zealand to…
Zodiac Cruising
It was tempting to just take photos constantly on our Antarctica trip. Especially during zodiac cruises, surrounded by ice. And while those who were around me certainly thought I was…
Incoming Gull!
Colonies of birds are a lot of fun to photograph - but it's sometimes difficult to know where to look! We passed this roost of White-fronted terns briefly while boating…
The Lemaire Channel – a sense of scale
There's nothing like good old nature to make you feel miniscule. While we were in Antarctica I was constantly awed by the sheer scale of the landscape, the wide stretches…
Preening Duck
I wrote a bit about composition a while back. In that post I lamented accidentally amputating parts of birds by not zooming out enough. In trying to diverge from just taking…