There is a beautiful road that connects Wanaka and Queenstown that is locally known as the Crown Range. It’s the highest highway in all of New Zealand as it crosses the Southern Alps. There are plenty of places to pull off the side of the road and get a view of the valley down below. I live down in there somewhere… kinda over on the right side of the photo.
My friend David Gent has a new beer company! Dave is a cool dude. He comes over to my studio about once a week and we drink gin & tonics and come up with new Black Mirror plots. Last night we came up with our magnum opus episode about a fake vasectomy with a plot twist. Hey! Maybe we should make a podcast where we record these ideas. That’s a good idea in itself and it’s also the root of a good idea for another Black Mirror episode in a parallel universe where podcasts about ideas are illegal. Wait, let me write this down.
Dave was also the bass guitarist for The Exponents, one of the most well-known New Zealand bands. He’s also the sperm man for the great Tane Gent, who you may remember as my assistant before he left me for that delightful succubus in Chicago.
Anyway, here’s the new video for their beer company. He says it only cost $300 to make.
Daily Photo – Panorama of Lake Wakatipu
On a recent trip to Glenorchy, I stopped along the road to make a panorama. I love it when the water here is so smooth and perfect. I continue to use Lightroom to do most of my stitching. It does a pretty good job, but it can occasionally really blow out some of the highlights. I wish I could make adjustments beforehand. Well, I actually can, but that takes an extra step because I have to export them from Lightroom and then bring them into Photoshop as layers before merging to the final image to make sure it transitions nicely.
I used the new Aurora (that is available for PC and Mac) to make today’s image. If you haven’t picked it up yet, then be sure to pop on over to the store and make it happen!
Daily Photo – An Autumn Wander
Last Autumn, I took the time to have some random walks around the countryside here between Queenstown and Arrowtown. There are hundreds and hundreds of little scenes like this everywhere. Most are on private property, but it seems to kind of okay to wander around anyway. No one has ever stopped me. In fact, I’ve met a lot of nice people. They see me with a camera and are a little suspicious, but then they chill out after we talk for a while and see I am just one of their friendly neighbors!
I have many meditation apps… this is a new one from Sam Harris that I really like. I think it’s perfect for people just getting into it for the first time. I’ve been meditating for a while, but it’s still fun to “start over” with a new set of techniques. That Sam Harris, he’s a cool cat.
Daily Photo – Derek Sivers in a Field
I think I really nailed it with the title of this photo. It came to me instantly. I don’t know what force brings about these amazing photo titles, but I am very thankful for it.
Man, I miss this guy! We were gonna do a big road trip across New Zealand, but we were both too busy to make it happen. He’s in Portugal now. Maybe I should make a trip over thataway and we’ll do a road trip there!
Best Black Friday / Cyber Monday Photography Deals
Searching for the best photography deals? We’ve made a tidy little list which will hopefully save you time and money!
Only TWO spaces left for our New Zealand Photo Workshop
Also, be sure to pop over to our workshops page to get more info and sign up. You’ll love it! (Be sure to check out the Black Friday page above for a special offer on the Workshops…)
Daily Photo – Beautiful Queenstown
You might recognize this from a lot of advertisements that Google ran to promote its Chromebook laptops. That caused a minor point of contention, I will tell you, honestly. But I didn’t have any desire to sue Google because I have so many friends there. Besides, the idea to sue a big company is just an invitation for disaster, no matter how genuine and earnest the intention. I mentioned this issue one day when I was talking to Sergey and things were worked out.
Anyway, this is one of the scenes you’ll see if you come out to New Zealand for the workshop! I only do one of these a year, and I have as good of a time as all of you!
Well, after my Mavic Pro had a dramatic crash, it’s time for a new unit with the Mavic 2! I’m excited about it… will try to pick one up on my upcoming trip to San Francisco! It looks like a nice little upgrade… I’m not materialistic at all, but I do kinda get excited about new creative tools like this.
Daily Photo – A Smooth Day on Lake Hayes
This is a good example of those 1/7 days where there is absolutely no wind at all. I took this with my quadcopter right in the middle of the lake. I’m always more worried flying it over water for some reason. I suppose that’s because it could always crash and that would be the end of it all. Although, realistically, 90% of the crashes over land if you’re 10 meters up could be catastrophic as well!
I’ve been playing a lot with “Phocus,” which is Hasselblad’s own first-party software for processing their photos. I thought for a while it was going to be better than Lightroom, but I just don’t see that yet. Look, I post-process a LOT (shocker), and I’m very familiar with many different tools. I don’t see anything I can do in Phocus that I can’t in Lightroom. But I’m still playing around… one thing for sure, Phocus is FASTER than Lightroom, but so is going to the moon…
Daily Photo – Driving to Dunedin
Sometimes on long drives across the south Island of New Zealand, you can come across many kinds of weather. This was one of those sunny days in one area where you are driving towards a bit of a gloomy, possibly stormy area. I hopped out of my car about ten times to get different photos, and this was one of my favorite compositions.
I’ve put a lot of updating into the DJI Phantom Review here on the site… I’ve been making so many videos lately and discovering new things. They seem to come out with a new product every 6 months or so — this keeps me on my toes!
Daily Photo – Sheep in a Triangle Shape
Isn’t this a fun photo? It’s another good example of what you can do with quadcopters! This one was the DJI Inspire with the X5 camera. I really actually don’t have that much experience with this system, but I am learning!
But I’ve also updated a few reviews for the Phantom and Inspire. My reviews were woefully out of date… sorry about that but now they are up-to-speed! DJI Phantom Review DJI Inspire Review
Daily Photo – Another Central Otago Pond
Well, there seem to be no less than 10,000 of these ponds all over the South Island of New Zealand. And they’re always surrounded with really beautiful objects that reflect like a painting. It’s almost as if some guy was making a perfect video game map and just sprinkled ponds and trees and rocks around in perfect formations… and it’s like I’m driving around finding these little secret spots in the New Zealand Video Game. I think it actually might be true, especially if what some people say is true, and we’re living in a projection. This is the projection I’d like to live in without apriori knowledge!
