To be exempt from the passions with which others are tormented, is the only pleasing solitude.  –  Joseph Addison Driving north in the early evening, I paused on a 2 km disused section of the old highway, quaint now for its narrowness and rustic one-lane bridge. The night was cold and moonless, with a constant […]

Photographing at night can be fascinating because we lose some of the control over what happens in front of the camera.  –  Michael Kenna  28mm, ISO 2000. 464 seconds (7 min 44 sec) at f13. Sodium vapour light balance      

Daylight is too easy. What I want is difficult – the atmosphere of lamps and moonlight.     – Edgar Degas 28mm; ISO 2500. 30 seconds at f11

Ah the moon’s too bright, the chain’s too tight, the beast won’t go to sleep… – Leonard Cohen (I’m Your Man) 85mm; ISO 500. 294 seconds (5 mins) at f16  

 The future will be better tomorrow.  –  Dan Quayle  50mm, ISO 2000. 8 seconds at f2.8. Light balance 3030 deg K

The moon could not keep shining if it had to pay attention to all the dogs barking at it.  –  Anon 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f11. Flash  

As long as you have certain desires about how it ought to be, you can’t see how it is.   – Ram Dass 28mm; ISO 2000. 94 seconds at f8. Light balance 3030 deg K.  

         Talent hits a target no one else can hit. Genius hits a target no one else can see.  –  Arthur Schopenhauer 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f8  

It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards.  –  Lewis Carroll 28mm; ISO 2000. 10 seconds at f2.8. Incandescent light balance  

To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.  –  Emily Dickinson 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f4  

 Just keep going. No feeling is final.  –  Rainer Maria Rilke 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f4. Light balance 3030 deg K  

 Seeking love keeps you from the awareness that you already are it.  –  Byron Katie 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 secs at f5.6. Mercury vapour light balance.      

If you never did, you should. These things are fun and fun is good.  –  Dr Suess  28mm, ISO 2000. 15 secs at f8. Col balance 2500 deg K.

It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters in the end. – Ursula K. Le Guin 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f7.1. Flash      

Wise sayings often fall on barren ground but a kind word is never thrown away.  –  Arthur Helps 28mm; ISO 2000. 6.6 secs at f10. Incandescent light balance; flash

The future is just going to be a vast, conforming ‘suburb of the soul’.  –  J.G. Ballard, 1982   28mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f9. Light balance 5000 deg K

If only I could stand on a street corner with my hat in my hand, and get people to throw their wasted time into it!  –  Bernard Berenson, U.S. art critic Taken last year at Te Hapu, Golden Bay and recalled by our more recent stay. Moonset before midnight always means a crescent moon, a simple […]

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

… 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  

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

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

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 […]

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 […]