This wide angle view is on the ocean side of Westhaven Inlet and features a dune flank backed by a steep line of limestone, which forms the rugged spine of North Head. It’s a memorable scene from an Easter foray to the far side of Golden Bay in 1986, not long after my purchase of […]

Although I took it 34 years ago this composition in thirds seems to have a timeless quality. It makes a fitting follow-up to my previous post: texture remains but vibrant colour is added in this telephoto view from a terrace above the beach at Te Hapu, a private property on Nelson’s far western coast.  A […]

This simple, moody abstract is a long exposure in north Taranaki, further north from Turangi Rd (my previous post). The view is from a small headland, looking down on a tide-washed sill above a bouldery seabed. A small aperture (unrecorded) was used primarily to extend the exposure, rather than the depth of field, although this […]

This unusual view at Turangi Road was an obvious candidate for monochrome. I like the four textures so suggestive of Taranaki: the skinny macrocarpas, corrugated iron, long tufts of hardy kikuyu grass and the Michael Smither-like stones and boulders. The sky was grey and cloudy behind. This scene will have eroded more since, as the […]

Another long exposure by moonlight, for which I certainly recall sheltering the tripod from a cold southwesterly, blowing strongly from behind. It meant I had the beach to myself, but airborne sand was a risk. The moon being a waxing one rather than full, it was much higher in the sky (and further west) for […]

This uncommon view of Mt Taranaki from the roadside at Kaimiro required a careful climb on to my car roof with the heavy Pentax 6×7 and tripod in hand, as I wanted the mountain to show well above the roofline. Elevated viewpoints so often improve a shot and sometimes I had a stepladder on board […]

A long exposure in deep twilight on my Pentax 6×7 film camera captures the tail lights of a car heading towards a fuel depot on Beach Rd. Monochrome is good for silhouettes and night lights. and with long exposures B&W film had the added benefit of not “going off” as much as colour film did […]

Winter turns to spring (in the southern hemisphere, that is) and my thoughts turn to summer, when I will re-visit this favourite place with friends – but not with the 6×7 Pentax SLR that I used here. Of course the roll film in the big camera did not have a digital stamp on it, but […]

Collectively. The quote is inspired by my reading of Drawdown, a book of solutions to global warming (with a tip of the hat also to Chris Wark, in an unrelated context).  The world is all reading a larger book, The Book of Life on Planet Earth (metaphorically), but of course some have barely begun reading […]

Reality can get in touch with you through your bank, your spouse or family, or via your employer or customers. It can find you despite all creative effort and artful camouflage – even if you are cloud-based, as I am. We are still embroiled in the renovation of an old house nearby, so I can […]

An epitaph of sorts, and a good one, being some last words from our late lamented friend Bernie Downey, whose memorial service was today. Bernie was always good-hearted and stimulating company, and he obliged me on this moonlit occasion two years ago at Te Hapu, Golden Bay, by holding his pose for a long test […]

A sombre but peaceful scene; the composition may be formalist but with the help of flash it rescues a somewhat flat summer moonrise. These pines at Waireka are at least alive, more than can be said for the 50 victims of the month’s most tragic event or – on a more immediately personal level – […]

Here we are with Rumi again; he was a devout Muslim and a great humanist. My twilight scene features the lowly convolvulus, and illustrates one obvious love of my own.

A longer exposure would blur the clouds (depending on your lens). Wide angles show less cloud movement, so the equivalent limit for sharp clouds on my 28mm lens could be as much as a minute. Cloud streaks, the opposite effect,  need about 2 minutes to look really good, but again, a longer time on wide […]

What a lovely summer’s evening this was – balmy and without even a sea breeze.  For the fisheries officer with the strong torch it was just another round of inspection but clearly my presence lacked line and bait. The short exposure has given a sharp outline to the boats, which on a longer shot invariably […]

Flash, twilight and birds on the wire. A straight-forward composition – what more is there to say? 1/200th sec at f16. ISO 500; Nikon 50mm. Flash

PRINT of the Month for February is this colourful composition from Omata, on New Plymouth’s southern fringe. Enlightened fennel flowers front for an almost-full moon, rising slowly without fanfare.  The road is a quiet, no-exit one and but for a muted drone from distant SH45 the scene had no soundtrack. This fine art photo is printed […]

DECEMBER in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 Calendar (now sold out). This is a nice balance between ambient twilight and flash, which shows as only a hint on the flax. Most magazine photos with close-up subjects (especially people) are illuminated in the same way, but often with the subject massively highlighted. The Sugar Loaves – so […]

LOL, as I did when I read this 6-word snippet online just recently. This is Memento mori [“Remember your mortality”] meets Embedded Quote, with a colourful ornament from Te Henui cemetery, New Plymouth. What it is to be human, and of a certain age! Will any of it matter in another 50 years?

On a weekday recently I went walking with a friend up our local valley, to the Maitai caves. Our wander through the forest became quite an enchanting one (with a little mud thrown in). The day was cloudy but not too hot or cold – no insects, no people! We didn’t actually get to the […]

Summer Moon, Turtle Cove, Golden Bay Announcing a new fine art print for the summer season. My moonlit gem titled Summer moon, Turtle Cove, Golden Bay is printed A3 size (297 x 420mm) on archival photo rag paper, with long-lasting proprietary inks. It’s a charmer, but limited strictly to just 25 prints, each numbered and signed by yours […]

SEPTEMBER in my 2019 calendar! Lake Mahinapua is the first stop after Hokitika as you head south down the South Island’s West Coast. Surrounded by native forest, the lake’s a total gem left to us by the last glacial retreat ten thousand years ago. On a weekday morning in April there are few camper vans […]

An idyll of sheep grazing peacefully by a grove of cabbage trees (ti kouka), on old dunelands behind Wharariki Beach, in Nelson. This is a wider version of the image appearing as FEBRUARY in my Modest Epiphanies 2019 calendar. It was taken on the foot track to the beach – in New Zealand the grandeur […]

Fine art prints from New Zealand Original and beautiful fine art for your walls Available now from night photographer Barney Brewster Do your walls suffer the secret shame of art poverty? Then your problem is solved. Today for a limited time I offer lovers of New Zealand scenes 8 fine art prints, at a very special […]