Landscape therapy.

If you have a look around at my 500px or flickr streams it’ll be come obvious pretty quickly that I have a pretty obvious enjoyment for shooting landscapes around me.  Granted it is one of the most easily accessible forms of photography.  I think most of us, if handed a camera and told to go outside and shoot, the first thing we would do is take pictures of the area we are in, the landscape that surrounds us be it urban or rural.

Moving out to New Zealand landed me slap bang in the middle of some of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen.  They are so different to any of the places I have been to:  Black sand beaches on the west coast with wild seas and rugged shorelines, damp and misty forests, towering snow capped peaks you name it and it seems New Zealand has it.

The Remarkables in Queenstown.

With my growing interest in photography I figured I would like to try and capture this place so I could show it to my family who doesn’t live here and anyone else who was interested in looking.  The more time I have spent doing this, the more I enjoy it and want to get better at it. And i guess this is for a couple of reasons.

First off I want to do these amazing landscapes justice.  Nature can be truly spectacular and I think it is really important to convey that properly through an image.  People can be transported to a place when looking at a picture and I think that is really cool, to be able to help someone feel like they are there with you in some little way.  If I can take a picture that does that then I consider that a success.

Early Morning in the Auckland Domian

 Secondly being out there, for me, is a really fulfilling experience.  Often I will be there by myself and it is a wonderful time to just let my mind go blank and just drink in the world around me.  By just letting everything go and emptying my mind I find it helps me be more there in that moment and this helps me make (hopefully) better pictures.

Narrowneck Beach, Devonport.

Being out there also means that I have an opportunity to capture something truly special and share it with many people.  I can give them a small snippet of the world as I am seeing it and offer them the opportunity to marvel with me at something that is wonderful and at that moment in time unique in the whole world.  Those clouds will never be like that again, that light might not fall in the exact same way again, those starfish may not be huddled together, sheltering from the surf in quite the same way.  I can catch that though, catch that light and document how it reveals these amazing sights to us and the show the world is putting on for anyone who is watching.

Muriwai Starfish

I love landscape photography.  Hopefully as I go and learn more about this art form I can do justice to the world as I am experiencing and seeing it.  Maybe you will be able to join me, even if only for a fleeting moment, on the beach I am on, in front of that mountain or bathed in the warm glow of that sunset.  If you do then I know I have succeeded in my goal of sharing something beautiful. 

Thanks for stopping by!