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      

There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. – Anaïs Nin 50mm; ISO 2000. 15 seconds at f8. Incandescent light balance  

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

Each of us is born into an already existent conversation.  –  Martin Heidegger 28mm, ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f16. Light balance 2500 deg K.    

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.  

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

Change is the very essence of life.  –  Anatole France 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 seconds at f11. Light balance 2500 deg K  

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

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.

Let it go, let it out / let it all unravel; Let it free and it can be/ a path on which to travel.  – Leunig 28mm; ISO 2000. 30 secs at f8. Incandescent light balance  

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

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 […]

What you do comes from what you think.  –  A Course in Miracles 85mm, ISO 2000. 13 secs at f11. Incandescent light balance

 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 […]

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

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

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 […]

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 […]

Correction does much, but encouragement does more. –  J. von Goethe Driving back after sunset from an amble around Stratford, Taranaki, I was pleased to see this dramatic church in Inglewood, the next country town. The magnificent kowhai tree in front was laden with blossom, while a branch hung down above the main floodlight. Not […]

Three lights at Paritutu, New Plymouth. 9.36pm, 10 September 2011 I have memory, which is the idiot’s talent. –  Francisco Umbral The three lights are moonlight (at sea), nearby industrial lighting and flash for the foreground. This shot has a cool feel because the incandescent (tungsten) setting was used to cool the light on the […]

Patience is a bitter plant, but it has sweet fruit. –  Chinese proverb The new crescent waxes and each evening is higher in the sky. Through a wide angle the early moon is barely visible; waxing a night or two later it is more conspicuous. Being higher in the sky it is harder to frame […]

Good sense travels on well worn paths; genius never. –  Cesar Lombroso The skies were clear but the wind was howling as I set up on the cycleway, across the way from the fertiliser works near Napier. Any shot that I failed to shelter from the windgusts was useless, so I hovered as close to […]

Never confuse activity with action. –  F. Scott Fitzgerald 28mm, ISO 2000. 2.5 seconds at f2.8. Incandescent light balance, flash

Never in his life could an idiot do such foolish things as are sometimes done by nations governed by hundreds of talented people. –  Benito Perez Galdos 28mm, ISO 2000. 2 minutes at f16. Incandescent light balance.