To forgive is to set a prisoner free and realize that prisoner was you.  –  Lewis B. Smedes 85mm; ISO 500. 15 seconds at f16. Incandescent light balance

The most powerful force on earth is the human soul on fire  –  Field Marshall Foch (adapted) 85mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f16        

I don’t believe people are looking for the meaning of life as much as they are looking for the experience of being alive. – Joseph Campbell 85mm; ISO 1000. 5 seconds at f11. Flash  

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? – Oscar Wilde  85mm; ISO 2000. 1/400th second at f4

 This is my simple religion. No need for temples. No need for complicated philosophy. Your own mind, your own heart is the temple. Your philosophy is simple kindness. – Dalai Lama XIV 50mm; ISO 2000. 1/13th second at f11

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.  –  Oscar Wilde 85mm; ISO 2000. 1/400th sec at f9

The illiteracy of the future will be ignorance not of reading or writing, but of photography. –      László Moholy-Nagy (Weimar photographer, 1926) Oh for a rising moon behind! But there was heavy overcast – and anyway, the moon was yet to rise. By the way, a big moon rising after dark is past […]

The moon develops the imagination, as chemicals develop photographic images. – Sheila Ballantyne 28mm; ISO 2000. 1/1.3rd second at f18. Flash

 I see magic in the quiet light of dusk.  –  John  Sexton 85mm; ISO 250. 30 seconds at f16. Incandescent light balance

Twilight photography is unfortunately neglected; what may be drab and uninteresting by daylight may assume a magnificent quality in the halflight between sunset and dark.  – Ansel Adams 28mm; ISO 2000. 1/200th sec at f5. Flash

My imagination makes me human and makes me a fool; it gives me all the world, and exiles me from it.  –  Ursula K. Le Guin 28mm, ISO 2000. 1 sec at f11. Flash  

All living creatures are making a great endeavour, struggling, to attain real everlasting happiness.  –  Srila Narayana Maharaja Happiness through illusion? This actually is twilight, but stirred with the flash for foreground and then thoroughly shaken in post-pro. The original sky is very blue because I was trying a tungsten light balance. However I wanted something more […]

Diligence is the mother of good fortune, and the goal of a good intention was never reached through its opposite, laziness.  –  Cervantes, 1615 85mm, ISO 2000. 1/500th sec at f5.6

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances.  –  Martha Washington, American First Lady. 85mm, ISO 320. 5 secs @ f5.6. Col balance 8330 deg K  

Tomorrow will be the same, but not as this is.  –  Colin McCahon “60mm”, ISO 125. 1 second at f2.8. Tungsten light balance  

The past is never dead. It’s not even past.  –  William Faulkner The epitome of the lonely grave, this one has extensive seafront views. Cecil Addison died of Tb, aged 16, on Christmas Eve 1924, and here lies in splendid isolation, some 800 m from the old homestead at Te Hapu. From numerous technical frustrations this test frame […]

Start every day with a smile and get it over with.  –  W.C. Field 85mm, ISO 2000. 1/13th sec at f7.1. Flash, 10000 deg K  

Do not dwell on the past; do not dream of the future. Concentrate the mind on the present moment.  –  Buddha 85mm ISO 2000. 1/10th sec at f5.6. Flash at 10,000 deg K

There is no duty we so much underestimate as the duty of being happy. Being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.   –  Robert L. Stevenson 85mm, ISO 2000. 1 sec at f16. Flash

To have made a beginning is half of the business; dare to be wise  –  Horace 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 seconds @ f11

  Plan for the future because that’s where you are going to spend the rest of your life. –  Mark Twain But why plan for the future when it’s already here? While waiting for a late moonrise I saw this spectacle, looming above the top floor of a parking building. Flash-assisted in deep twilight, the […]

Wisdom comes with age, but sometimes age comes alone. –  Anon Any “ordinary” photo of floodlit buildings will be lifted by background twilight, an obliging moon and the selection of an artificial light balance. Lady Godiva obliging on a white horse in front of the dark tree would’ve helped too, but unfortunately she was already […]

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 […]

Hope is a good breakfast, but it is a bad supper. –  Francis Bacon Contrary to Bacon, as a night photographer my hopes rise at supper. The new moon is not visible until the sky darkens, well after sunset. This moon always needs a supporting cast, to add both human scale and pictorial interest; here […]

Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life. –  Daniel F. E. Auber Using the wide angle with flash at twilight is easier than the telephoto because the former has better depth of focus. Aperture selection balances the two light sources, the flash burst with the longer background fill. Flash […]