The far southern tip of the South Island of New Zealand has an endless network of beautiful fjords. For some reason, this area is called Milford Sound, even though it’s technically a fjord. It’s beautiful any time of the year, but every now and then, if you are patient, you can see an amazing sunset.
I feel like seeing a dolphin is a bit like seeing a unicorn. They are so rarely seen, but these two came up to ride the wave in front of our boat. I get excited like a little kid when I see dolphins. Also, I think it kinda looks like they are holding hands.
Dipping into NFTs with my Burning Man images has been a fun experience so I’ve selected a handful of my other art, converted into animated content and listed on OpenSea. You’ll find a whole range of options from straight up purchases to auctions and a couple of other twists. For example, if you’ve been considering one of my massive fine art prints for a while then this is a great way to get in on the action, you can bid on one as an NFT and receive the 1.66 x 2.5 meter physical print if you win!
Here is a little preview of one NFT…
We stopped here for a quick re-fuelling before heading off to look over Milford Sound in the falling light. We were quite lucky the weather was so clear because big rains and storms can roll in here any time but in any case, our pilot wasn’t too worried as he told us that his chopper was faster than a storm.
You never know what the weather conditions will be like in Milford Sound. It’s a 4-hour trip to get there, and, whatever happens, happens. I think it’s beautiful in any kind of situation. Most of the time there is rain and fog and moodiness, as you can see here and as always with that place it’s still like a cover of a sci-fi novel.
As usual, every Sunday we release a new video for Passport Members. Today, you’ll see some videos from my fun day flying in a helicopter over the Southern Alps of the South Island of New Zealand. You’ll also see 700+ terrible photos and how I made the selections of my favorites. Enjoy!
Today’s video shows the 700+ photos I took and how I chose my favorites. I don’t do a lot of processing in here (though you do see some results), so this one is more about how I separate the wheat from the chaff.
We landed at this awesome location just north of Milford Sound to jump out and take some photos. As you can see, the weather was amazing and the light was perfect. It was quite lucky, as there is often a ton of rain pouring in after it crosses the Tasman Sea (the ocean between Australia and New Zealand), so we took the opportunity to take a ton of photos!
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.
Today, if you’re a Passport member, then you’ll get to see some clips from the amazing 8K footage we captured for Over The Top Helicopters here in Queenstown, New Zealand for my friend Choppy! What kind of equipment did we use? We took up two helicopters, one of them had the first 8K flight setup anywhere in the world – specifically, the Shotover P1 MK ll dedicated 8K gimbal with a Red Monstro camera and Angenieux 36/435 zoom lens.
And here are a few of my favorite photos I captured on those amazing few days of shooting!
For those of you who missed it, here is the previous video on the project. A 360 vlog on location…including inside the helicopters. 🙂
Here are some of the best video shorts we got from helicopter to helicopter! They are going to be using these in HD at trade shows and stuff to run in the background and other edits will be used for different purposes. Thanks again to the whole team for helping out!
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.
Thanks Stu for adding this page all about my home you can rent in New Zealand. We have one of them on Adobe Spark, but I thought it was a good idea to put here too!
In continuing the Best Of category… let’s go way down south the the fjordlands of New Zealand!
