When we stayed on Waiheke for a few days, we ended up heading over to try out a few different wineries. I don’t have a perfect memory, but I seem to remember this beach was the home to Man o’ War wineries. I didn’t know what was over on the other side of the dock, so I launched the quad to swing it around and get a sense of the whole coastline.
Here is another photo from Gisborne that I took with the drone. It wasn’t until I got high above this estuary when I realized even more beautiful shapes. It reminds me that I should really get that drone up and out more to see all the cool patterns that are hidden at eye level.
I just saw this funny video about people that take the same photos over and over again in New Zealand.
I probably should have photoshopped all the bird poop off that cool dock first… I don’t know why I didn’t. It would have taken me LESS time to write a few sentences about how I lament not doing it. This is yet another area of my life where I have regrets… If I could have just thought ahead, about how I would be spending 120 seconds writing this, rather than spending 60 seconds with content-aware patching. Oh, how I wish I could rewrite the past… Anyway, this is a 9-photo panorama.
What a clever idea this is!
While I was in Gisborne, I got my quadcopter up and around to explore the hillside as much as possible. I hiked around these hills quite a bit, but that gets to be quite exhausting. So, instead, I decided just to relax a little and let my quad do the work for me. At one point, I got a little overzealous and the quadcopter ran out of batteries and got stranded on one of these hillsides… which means my whole plan failed as I had to hike up to the top to recover it.
Every Sunday, there is a fresh how-to video for Passport Members. I hope you enjoy this one as much as the others! Today’s shot was made out of 9 different photos in a 3×3 panorama.
Today’s video shows more about the creation of this photo – enjoy!
I don’t usually put people in my photos, but this shot called for it. There’s this strange thing in landscapes (especially in New Zealand) where you can’t quite tell the scale of things. By putting a human in the shot, it gives the whole thing a sense of scale. My friend Monni spent a few weeks with me here and she was often wandering around with my second camera, and I happened to catch her right at the end of the pier in the middle of this estuary near Gisborne.
This one recently broke the world record!
Here’s kind of a cool trick! If you click on this photo, you’ll get all the interesting info including a satellite photo of where it was taken from. This is a super cool feature of the DJI drones in that it records the GPS data of every photo. After you get over to Smugmug, click the three lines on the left and it will open up all the EXIF including a cool map down at the bottom.
Enjoy this majestic nature.
Every day on Laucala Island was just as great as the next. The weather was perfect every day except for a few late afternoon showers every other day or so. But that’s always kind of a fun event because you can feel it going and run under cover to get a book or, in my case, download all my files…
Today, for you awesome passport members you’ll get to see all the “rejects” from a recent art commission I did. At first, I did not think about sharing these, but I thought you may be interested in seeing the ones that didn’t make the cut. They’re not terrible photos or anything… but that final selection process is always a little difficult!
I proposed a final 10 with 3 alternates to the clients, and they loved all of them. I just recently sent them all these “rejects” which I now share with you. There are definitely still some winners in here that I’ll be sharing soon on the blog and social media… but I hope you enjoy seeing them in the meantime!
If you haven’t seen “My Octopus Teacher” – then make sure you get it on your list… here’s a trailer for it.
As you exit the tunnel on the way to Milford Sound and Mitre Peak, this is the scene with which you are presented. I pulled over to the side and launched the quad to see the hypnotic scene from above.
If you are a Passport Member then today you’ll see some of my favorite shots from the past few weeks on the north island of New Zealand. You’ll see my 13 selects… and in a future week, I’ll show you my 71 rejects, some of which are actually pretty good.
I went back and forth with Stu and the team about the best photos. It’s funny how everyone has a slightly different opinion… in the end, I chose these 13. I hope you like them too!
