As with some other destinations I was already thinking about how quickly I could get back even before I had left. It really is that wonderful. This trip was in two parts with a planned tour by PhotoPills to start and then 8 days on my own after that (which wasn't totally on my own because one of the other tour clients decided to join me). As you likely know, and can see below, New Zealand has an amazing variety of landscape in a compact geography. Weather, of course, plays a part of any landscape photography trip and is hugely important here. We were rained out of evening, astro, and morning shoots at Lake Matheson but then gifted two evening and two morning shoots, a boat cruise and an astro shoot in Milford Sound all in fabulous weather. First the images from the organized tour (but not in the order shot) followed by the extra week along with a bit more description of what we did. The seven images at the end of this first grid are shot from a light plane as we had two flights included in the tour; one from Queenstown up to Tititea / Mount Aspiring and the other from Tekapo over Aoraki / Mount Cook. And as always I have too many images here that are similar and am struggling to decide which I like better. And this is just the South Island!
The official tour ended in Christchurch and Rich and I picked up a car there and hit the road south. Daniel Murray (one of the tour leaders along with Andy Marty) kindly marked up a map with additional spots that we hadn't seen, far more than we could hope to shoot properly in a month let alone a week. I did most of the driving while Rich helped navigate and booked hotels from the road while we both scoured the land for interesting shots. Due to quite a bit of fog (which is usually great for simplifying compositions but this was just too thick at times) we couldn't plan or even scout locations for the next morning. But sometimes we found interesting scenes on the edge of the fog or burst into spectacular sunshine with views of the snow-capped ranges in Central Otago.
Lastly I need to mention the paintings of Grahame Sydney which captivated me in the hotel at Mount Cook. The next morning Neville, one of the kiwis on the trip, talked about Sydney's work and later guided me towards used booksellers where I obtained a copy of the out-of-date book of Sydney's art. Most are scenes from Central Otago, simple yet elegant. Have a look at https://grahamesydney.co.nz . Rich and I were then on the lookout for Sydney-esque scenes. Here are a few that I am likely going to try to develop further in Sydney's style. (Notice that fog was a recurring theme during this part our trip; you get what you get.)
