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.
Here’s one of my favorite photos just outside my hotel in Venice. I stayed here for about three weeks, so it was quite a long time to be returning to the same place every night. After about two weeks, I finally memorized most of the streets and would no longer get lost. This was the view that awaited me every night upon my return home… I took this one with the Hasselblad.
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When I was staying at the Ritz-Carlton at Phulay Bay, one day we jumped into a boat and headed over to the archipelago in search of that cool island from one of the early James Bond movies. It turns out there are lots of islands that have that same look with the undercut limestone. The snorkeling is great around here and the water is always perfectly clear. Sometimes, however, when you get out into the ocean, you can see a big floating pile of trash, and that is really kind of depressing…
I think maybe photographers have a particularly fun life because perhaps we notice things more than other people. I mean, I see non-photographers notice interesting things too, but I am usually thinking, “Yeah, I saw that ages ago.” Haha… not in a dismissive way, but I think once you start taking photos you just notice a little bit more of everything.
As soon as I moved to New Zealand, I got about 250,000 bees. I’ve always wanted to be a beekeeper, so I thought it was a great opportunity to give back to the planet a little bit. It’d be kinda awesome if everyone did that, eh? We have a little farm with that’s about 10 acres big and it’s had all sorts of ups and downs. We’ve had sheep born and die (even buried one but not deep enough so its legs sticking out of the ground…) We’ve had chickens that have been killed by dogs and birds of prey… but the only thing that keeps on going without fail is the beehives. It’s not that I’m a great beekeeper; I’m actually terrible! But I’m learning all the time.
The reason that I got into bees is because I’ve always been fascinated by superorganisms. I first got interested in ants then got into bees. From the early days of the internet, I kind of got the idea that humans were going to someday form a superorganism and we would use the internet the same way ants use scent trails or bees perform the waggle dance. I’ve learned so much from my bees about nature and the fundamental inter-workings of the world… I’ve also learned that I’m a pretty crappy beekeeper and I still have a lot to learn!
Here’s the Dart River that flows down from the Southern Alps then fills up Lake Wakatipu. I took this from a helicopter with Choppy and Over the Top while we were on the way to one of our first glacier landings. You can get a quadcopter up over this as well, but you can’t get nearly this high to get this perspective… to me, the more braided rivers, the better!
Another Sunday, so time for another section of the blog to unlock for Passport Members. If you’re not a member yet, then, why not? Now you get access to over 200 videos plus a ton of other goodies!
Here’s a fun quick video that shows a few unexpected editing choices for this photo!
If you ever go to London to take photos, I recommend setting aside a few hours at night to cross back and forth across the Thames on every bridge you can find. They all have cool perspectives, and this one on the way to St. Pauls is one of the most contemporary ones…
Wow… Stu just informed my that my first Machine Elf video (See the Machine Elf Website here) has garnered more than 130,000 views, making it one of the most popular videos on my YouTube channel. I actually think it is the WORST of all 8 of the Machine Elf videos we have released so far, but it was the very first one. I think the music is cool, but it’s a little JARRING and not really as groovy as all the others… I don’t hate it or anything, but I’m just comparing it to my newer creations. Anyway, here it is!
The best time to get to the mosque here is just before sunset. That’s a popular time to visit the area, but also one of the best for photos. After then, people slowly start to leave before it’s almost completely empty at dark. The lighting here is so beautiful that I think the night shots rival even the sunset shots.
Here’s a photo I got early one morning up at the Remarkables Snowfield. I forgot the exact reason I went up here, but I got on a snowmobile and rode up to the very top for photos. It was freezing cold, naturally, but it was pretty cool to get up there before it officially opened to get some clean photos. I’m actually so lame that I haven’t snowboarded in about five years! Although, on this day, I wish I had brought my board! 🙂
When Derek came down to visit, we spent a lot of time rolling around in grass of various heights. On this particular day, we decided to find some grass that was just a little higher than Derek when he was supine. It was the horses over there that gave us this ingenious idea.
Choppy made a stop at the airport in Milford Sound to re-fuel the helicopter so we could keep the flight going longer. It was a super-long day of flying with nearly five hours in the air. I’m not sure how much fuel a helicopter can hold, but we were flying pretty hard so probably about three hours worth… By hard flying, we actually had two helicopters up as we were flying from location to location.
