Another crisp autumn day invites another exploratory walk to a new destination. I’m incredibly fortunate to have so many diverse landscapes within easy walking distance of home. One of the things I treasure most about New Zealand is the sheer variety of trees, each species transforming into its unique autumn hues at slightly different times.
Day 1 of the hike brought us to this stunning spot. Pretty amazing, right? These mountaintop lakes are called tarns, formed when glaciers carve out small hollows in the landscape. Rain and snow replenish these tarns throughout the year, creating an extra element in these breathtaking scenes.
I think I’ve now used every model of Pixel and love them, so it was interesting to stumble across this podcast from The Verge where they interview Marc Levoy, former Google engineer. He led the team that developed computational photography technologies for the Pixel and I get a little mention just after the 24minute mark. A shortened text version is available here, the whole interview is super interesting though.
Another from the Pixel series, this time the “4” which was a great little device.
A few years ago, I hiked the Routeburn track here on the South Island. It’s an epic trail but I didn’t release many images from that trip yet. So, let’s spend a few days fixing that. here’s a lovely stream from along the way. Nothing fancy, just lovely.
On the middle day of the hike, the fog rolled in for the entire day so it was extra moody. I didn’t mind at all because it just makes for a different kind of photo. I felt like I was in the Scottish Highlands, even though I’ve never actually been to the Scottish Highlands! That’ll be fixed soon though!
Every day during the lockdown in New Zealand, which I think only lasted about four weeks, I would go on an afternoon hike. I found myself drawn to this area again and again… these tiny little perfect pools of water… I actually took these with my mobile phone, although I don’t think most people would guess that in 100 years.
The walk to my studio is always provides a little bit of inspiration. Sometimes (like today) it’s the cherry blossoms. Other days it’s the changing color of the leaves moving through the seasons…
Looking forward to the new Google Pixel 6 arriving in the coming days… It’ll be interesting to see how the camera is on this generation. The past models have often been class leading. In fact, they have been so good that as well as sharing a bunch of images on here from each phone, an image from one of them has even made it into my Fine Art collection! Anyway, here is a pic from a misty hike along the Routeburn track last year, taken with the Pixel 4.
Man, I was just looking at the metadata for this one to see where I took it exactly, and I realized it was with the Google Pixel 4 phone. Quite impressive, I must say. I could tell it was a little different because when I opened up the little “i” on SmugMug (you can do this too), I saw a little map of where I took the photo.
