I was looking for a totally different shot to share today and stumbled across this one and it really appealed to me, so I’m sharing that instead. A Nikon D800+Fisheye lens from a helicopter. Not so flat earth!
Here’s another one of the images from my 1000 Stories from 1000 Places NFT drop. It sold out in minutes, but they are now available to trade on OpenSea and X2Y2, etc so be sure to check them out.
Oh, and there is something special about this NFT… In this collection of 1k1k, there are six uber-uniques. That means if you are holding this in your wallet on March 31st 2023, you can have the full print shipped to you! The real-life prints range in price from $35,000 USD to $95,000 USD, and you’ll join amazing collectors like Edward Norton and Leonardo DiCaprio.
Now on with the story.
I woke up with a dead rabbit beside me.
I know this isn’t the sort of thing one wants to hear when looking at this timeless and Hawking-esque beauty, but it is the strange truth.
I arrived at sunset at this remote and beautiful church in the middle of the south island of New Zealand. There were quite a few people milling about, taking countless mobile-phone photos of themselves holding the church in their little fingers or using selfie-sticks. I think they are just perhaps making a visual diary, or trying to create a story of themselves, which is fine and okay.
My plan was to stay late and sleep outside. I had my sleeping bag and my friend Stu was there. We set up our bags by the church, had a few glasses of wine, put on some music, and talked about nonsensical things and laughed into the night. Around 3 AM, my alarm went off, so I slipped out of my bag to capture this scene. The next morning the supine rabbit appeared between Stu and me. We were bewildered and laughing.
Tekapo, New Zealand
Well when you get to see this for yourself, you’ll soon discover they are not impossible! It does of course depend on the sun and some of the other ambient light, but this is a pretty standard color. It looks extra nice with those little white cliffs too. Right below them, you see something that might be beaches, but they are not… that is just some of that white chalky stuff that is being brushed back into the water.
Here’s one of the last photos I took in New Zealand before I got on the 10+ hour plane ride from Christchurch to the New Zealand base in Antarctica. That was my base of operations for about a month of some of the craziest adventures ever. We made a ton of videos there that I still haven’t released. Too many projects! 🙂
Those of you who have been following the blog for a while will know of my love for manual focus Leica lenses. They’re great for just about every purpose and have that something special about the look they create. One of the real highlights with them is astrophotography, such as this shot from Tekapo in New Zealand.
I wish I lived closer to this lake in Tekapo so I could go out there more often to see all the pretty sunsets across the glacier-fed blue water. Whenever I do drive back and forth to Christchurch, though, I usually stop here for a bit! It’s actually one of the reasons I prefer the 4 hour drive to Christchurch from Queenstown rather than the 30 minute flight… there are so many places to stop and take photos!
From the new NFT drop on Foundation
In the Spring of each year, the lupins come out to play. Some local Kiwis don’t like them because they think of it as a weed. Well, as far as weeds go, they are pretty spectacular.
I had the most amazing acid experience while listening to this song!
It was at Burning Man, and me, Rene, and Jonatas had all ended up in our RV. We were all on acid (of course). Anyway, we were listening to some of the craziest music from Jonatas’ Brazilian playlist and we were laughing SO HARD. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so much. They went to sleep, but I was still pretty wired, so I decided to put on some Hans Zimmer. This song “Mountains” from Interstellar came up and started to play… whoa did it ever take me to another place.
It was a super moody and stormy day on my drive to Tekapo. I could see there was a big storm a-brewin’ ahead of me but it was still sunny where I was standing. It seemed like the perfect opportunity to stop here near Mount Cook and get a view from the quad of this rather amazing water on Lake Pukaki. Yes, that’s the real color!
I’ve released about 100 videos for Passport Members, and more are on the way! Today’s video shows the how-to edit of this pretty sunset photo in New Zealand.
Today’s photo that you see below has had quite a few modifications. Wait till you see the original in this video. This photo was already 90% pretty, but there was 10% of very ugly stuff right in the middle that I had to eventually get rid of. And then, in the end, you see my little mountain stretch trick!
I took this photo during an overnight journey with my friend Cliff. We actually slept right here in my pickup truck, which was kinda fun. I had heard about these pools, so we went up here for sunset then decided just to stay until the sunrise. One not-so-awesome thing about this water is it is some kind of water treatment facility. So there was some trash and junk in there. I can’t imagine how it all got there since this is about 20 kilometers from the city of Tekapo itself.
