Its been a while

Though it's been a while since the last post on here I have been busy with photographs. I've been editing about 150 images that are about to appear in a revision of Alan Mark's classic "alpine plants of NZ". I've also been fitting in a bit of plant photography that I plan to use in some plant books of my own. During a walk yesterday looking for NZ plants that I haven't photographed yet I was lucky enough to encounter this little guy - an Archey's frog (Leiopelma archeyi). I say lucky because this species has been hit hard by a fungus that is also decimating other frog populations around the globe. Archeys frog is now classified as Critically Endangered and noone really knows how many are left in the Coromandel Ranges and in Whareorino Forest - the only locations where they have ever been found. I'm particularly saddened about the decline in Archeys frog as I did some monitoring work on this species before the fungus invaded - back in 1998. Back then I found lots of Archeys frogs, some as small as the fingernail on your little finger. Now that we live in the Coromandel I've been keeping an eye open for these guys in all their usual haunts, but with no luck. Until yesterday

Anyway, a reintroduction to an old friend ....

Archeys frog, Coromandel Peninsula

About the photo: frogs are really difficult to photograph due to light reflecting off their moist skin. They're even more difficult to photograph when they're only the size of your top thumb joint and you're working alone! To photograph this frog I found a nice mossy boulder and arranged a fern leaf to add some depth to the background. Next on a tripod above and to camera left I balanced a flash with a diffuser to act as main light. A series of practice shots were used to set the light output from this main flash. Photo taken one handed with a 100mm macro lens on manual focus and f16 at 125th/sec and ISO 100. A ring-flash was hand-held low and to camera right to fill in the shadow on the side of the frog.

Quirky

Sometimes it pays to have quirky photographs as part of your portfolio. Two recent image sales could best be described as for quirky images.

The first is of a dread-locked cricketer going out in the rain to bat in a losing game on the remote island nation of St Helena. This was sold for publication in that bible for cricket connoiseurs: Wisden. Those familiar with this publication know that it has very few photographs in its 1,500 pages devoted lovingly to the statistics of all first-class cricket throughout the world. It ws therefore a considerable compliment from them to request this image:

and here it is with Simon Green's accompanying article:

thanks to Wisden/Bloomsbury Publishing for use of page proof

My other example is based not so much around the quirky image, but a quirky name. A few years ago a botanist named Michael Heads erected the genus Hebejeebie for some, mainly alpine, plant species in New Zealand. This name was a play on combining the previous name for Hebe (the group of plants that used to include these species) and the presumed reaction from other botanists. BBC Wildlife Magazine liked this name and the only image they could find was mine of Hebejeebie trifida:

But it has to be said - not one of my best plant photos!

Botanists, being botanists, have since played around with the names for these plants and some now call this plant Veronica trifida and some call it Parahebe trifida while others still prefer Hebejeebie trifida!


How did the editors of these publications find these images? James Coyne from Wisden Googled "St Helena cricket" and my blog article (here) came up.

Wanda Sowry from BBC Wildlife Magazine also used Google searching for "Hebejeebie" and my image on the New Zealand Plant Conservation Network's website http://www.nzpcn.org.nz came up

Smoke and mirrors

A busy time recently editing images and photographing NZ plants (more on this later), but have still managed to get a (few) photos.

First the Ketetahi hotsprings on the flanks of Tongariro volcano in Tongariro National Park. This area is waahi tapu (sacred site) to local maori whose legend is that the demigod trickster Maui warmed himself here after stealing the secret of fire from the gods in Hawaiiki.

About the photo: As this is a sacred site, I could not get close. That, and the uninspiring partially overcast sky made it challenging to get a good photo. I used a moderately wide angle lens (Canon 24-105 f4 L @ 24mm) at f 16 to get the depth of focus from the nearby tussock grasses to the stream in the valley and up to the ridgeline, and underexposed by nearly 1 stop. I waited for a patch of sunlight to highlight the geothermal steam. Not a great shot, but not too bad given the conditions.

Next was a detail shot.

About the photo: this is taken from the same location as that above and using the same lens zoomed to 105mm. F 6.3 was used to add depth to the photo and to give the 1/500th sec shutter speed to freeze the billowing of the steam. What would be great would be to have something in there like a person in a red raincoat to give a sense of scale (they would be about as tall as my logo). You work with what you get . . .


After recovering from feeling a bit like spawning salmon after having to struggle against people walking the nearby Tongariro Alpine Crossing track in their hundreds (every day) we headed to Waihora Lagoon in Pureora State Forest in a large electrical storm - you gotta go that extra mile if you want your photos to stand out! Unfortunately the clouds weren't cooperating to give a great towering dark cloudbank backdrop, but I'm reasonably happy with the results . . .

About the photo: this is a panorama created from 9 overlapping images. A polarising filter was used to reduce the sheen on the water. The rain gave a gorgeously saturated green to the trees, but meant Fran had to hold a reflector over the camera to keep the camera dry (I left the umbrella in the car - doh!!).

And another perspective:

About the photo: this is a single shot taken while standing in the lake (maybe not a great idea as the lightning and thunder crackled and roared all around). A low viewpoint was used to bring attention to the water and a slow shutter speed (2 seconds) to add a haze over the water surface from the torrential rain. With the cloud backdrop I envisaged, this could have been an awesome shot. Next time.

Next post - babies or video. Yet to decide

And back!

We've been flat out getting ourselves setup back in New Zealand, hence the lack of recent posts. We now have two fledgling businesses, one based on environmental management and the other based around photography. A very very busy time developing products, buying lots of expensive gear and trying to decide where to base ourselves. Mike's also started organizing and cataloging something like 50,000 images taken over the past 5 years (he wants to get it down to half that number) and dealing with image requests. He has also (finally) finished processing all his St Helena photos and has started  to select those which will appear in the upcoming guide to St Helena. An exciting and nervous time, but in these initial stages both businesses are showing promising signs. We'll keep you posted!

Here are a few of the last St Helena photos:

Chefs prepare the starters for the evening meal on board the RMS St Helena. I only had 15 minutes in the very busy kitchen and in that time had to find the shots, compose and get people to look natural and relaxed. I went handheld, slow shutter (1/20th sec, to give some movement) with high ISO (800) using the overhead fluorescents as the only light source

Chief Officer Peter Melville on the bridge of the RMS St Helena. This photograph is a blend of two exposures one for the interior and the other for the outside

Golfers on St Helena's 9 hole golf course. Hitting a wandering goat allows the player a penalty shot, as does hitting a passing car

Inside The Standard bar on a Saturday afternoon. Always good for a laugh and a few TALL tales

The 699 steps of Jacobs Ladder connecting Jamestown and Half Tree Hollow. A 30 second exposure at f16. The trick is in getting the right time of day/night!

Inside Greg Cairns-Wicks' Queen Mary Supermarket in Jamestown. Everything from plastic vines to Maggi soup!

Every night over the breeding season rare Bulwer's petrels land at Gill Point to try and find nesting sites. And every night there are one or two cats waiting for them. The cats eat the birds in secluded caves and overhangs in the rocks, leaving large drifts of feathers. Photo info: two remote-controlled flashes camera right behind rock, one on-axis flash to add detail to foreground.

Part of the St Helena police force rest easy and exchange comments on which foot is their left foot before parading in welcome to the newly arrived Governor Capes