Health is the greatest gift; Contentment the greatest wealth; Faithfulness the best relationship.  –  Buddha 28mm, ISO 2000. 123 secs at f22. Flash

What’s gone and what’s past help, should be past grief.  –  William Shakespeare 50mm, ISO 2000. 2.5 secs at f4  

  With your silhouette when the sunlight dims, into your eyes when the moonlight swims, and your matchbook songs and gypsy hymns: Who among them would try to impress you? –  Bob Dylan (Sad-eyed Lady of the Lowlands) 85mm, ISO 2000. 5 secs at f11

… all our senses will be purified, and there will be nothing to criticize and no unhappy memories.  –  Srila Narayana Maharaja 28mm, ISO 2000. 2.5 secs at f2.8  

When I admire the wonder of a sunset or the beauty of the moon, my soul expands.  – Gandhi 50mm, ISO 2000. 15 secs at f11  

A fool sees a tree, by moonlight. 11.49pm, 10 January 2012  A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees.  – William Blake 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f13. Flash

Summer’s night, Westhaven Inlet. 11.17pm, 10 January 2012 Everything in life that we really accept undergoes a change.  –  Katherine Mansfield 50mm, ISO 2000. 170 secs at f22. Flash.

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.  –  St Augustine  28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f11

If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.  –  Regina Brett, at 90 85mm, ISO 2000. 10 secs at f1.4

 When in doubt, just take the next small step.  –  Regina Brett, at 90 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f10. Incandescent light balance  

The future is purchased by the present.  –  Samuel Johnson 28mm, ISO 2500. 30 secs at f10

The real difference between people is energy. –  Thomas Fuller 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f7.1

Through the friendly silence of the soundless moonlight. – Virgil 50mm, ISO 500. 30 seconds at f16. Flash

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. –  J.F. Kennedy 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f8. Flash

It is madness for sheep to talk peace with a wolf. –  Thomas Fuller 85mm, ISO 2000. 10 secs at f4.5

I confess that the head gardener has long asked for a moonlight photo of these louts, here at home. On the wrong side of a trellis, the artichokes are shaded from the full moon until after midnight; they’re also exposed to the sickly orange of streetlights. To fix the first problem I togged up after […]

Backlit by moonlight. 2.47 am, 11 November 2011 Most of us swim in the ocean of the commonplace. –  Pio Baroja Although I’m not really satisfied with this, returning for another attempt wouldn’t deliver the same magic I first found here. While commonplace as to foliage, the light on this scene was striking, being an […]

Friendship is a sheltering tree. –  S.T. Coleridge Peering through a suburban cabbage tree involved an awkward set-up on sloping ground; every slight adjustment of the tripod also changed the ponga ferns relative to the foreground. I was however nicely sheltered from a frigid gale. I’ve used a conventional depth of field method known as […]

Experience is the comb that nature gives us when we are bald.  –  Anon Another split focus, single frame experiment; the hairdresser’s quote is suggested by the full-frontal flash on the flower stalks. For the rest of the exposure the lens barrel has been swiftly rotated, moving the focus closer to infinity. This gives reasonable […]

  Fern and farm, autumn night. 8.58pm, 19 May 2011 Great works are performed not by strength but by perseverance. –  Samuel Johnson Taranaki is so wet that ferns thrive even out on their own, as here on farmland close to town. The extra lighting is from a penlight, and far more subtle than in […]

The truth is more important than the facts. –  Frank Lloyd Wright I clambered up a cutting for this welcome perspective, then waited a while for a car to complete the picture, a 5 min 35 sec exposure. The car is actually a police car looking for me. A strange vehicle has been reported down […]

Too much light is like too much darkness: you cannot see. –  Octavio Paz Mt Taranaki and the Southern Cross. I’d had this viewpoint in mind for sometime, as it has a convenient carpark and a sweeping bend. Much depends on car speed, headlight direction and high or low beam – plus ISO choice and […]

The thing always happens that you really believe in, and the belief in a thing makes it happen. –  Frank Lloyd Wright Using the smallest aperture on the bridge I got both the near bones and the distant peak into sharp focus with a telephoto lens. A lower ISO was needed to extend the exposure […]

Live as long as you may, the first 20 years are the longest half of your life.  – Southey A composition in classic thirds. The quote is personal, referring to my first return to Waikanae Beach since spring 1976, with some ardent memories attached. Youthful impressions can be deepest on the sand! Bright shore means […]

No state of affairs is ever perfect. –  Horace On a mild spring evening a slip of a moon comes down the starry sky to a calm sea. What a marvellous programme! A bench seat was provided but there was no admission charge,  applause or intermission – and no commercials. Truth be told though, I […]