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      

High tide by moonlight, Turtle Cove, Golden Bay. 7.35 pm, 2 June 2012  The night has vast potential for creativity.  –  Michael  Kenna 28mm; ISO 2000. 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  

How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.   Marcus Aurelius 28mm; ISO 2000. 15 seconds at f8. 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 problem with the youth of today is that one is no longer part of it. – Salvadore Dali 50mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f11. 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

Live courageously, and produce.  –  Vincent van Gogh  28mm, ISO 2000. 3 secs at f8. Sodium vapour light balance

To make the truth more plausible, it is absolutely necessary to mix a bit of falsehood with it.  –  Dostoevsky Staying three nights this week at Marahau, gateway to Abel Tasman National Park (Nelson), we had lovely evenings “to behold the waxing moon”. At Kaka Pa Point we discovered an easy path down to a sandy cove, Breaker Bay, above which […]

The world to me is a dream and the people in it are sleepers. I have known a few instances of intensity but that is all.  – Katherine Mansfield 28mm, ISO 2000. 6 secs at f2.8  

I do not want the peace that passeth understanding. I want the understanding which bringeth peace.  –  Helen Keller 85mm, ISO 2000. 30 secs at f16

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

 Life is a badly edited film.  –  Fernando Trueba This was taken without using a tripod or cable release – just holding the camera open on B, on a guard rail on the Cook Strait ferry, has done the trick. The cloud is lit by moonlight, the lower part of the image must be the motorway the […]

  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

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

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  

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 […]

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.

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  

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

The love of life is necessary to the vigorous prosecution of any undertaking. – Samuel Johnson 50mm, ISO 2000. 13 seconds at f8. Flash

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

Time is the reef upon which all our frail mystic ships are wrecked. –  Noel Coward Here you see no ships nor port, but a curious effect of some tricky experimentation. Changing the focus manually during exposure gives two planes of focus! For technical reasons this works best on telephoto, using flash before a time […]

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 […]