NZPhotographer Issue 17, March 2019 by NZPhotographer

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ISSUE 17, March 2019

INTERVIEW WITH SHAUN BARNETT LOVE COMPETITION WINNER & BEST ENTRIES HOW TO CAPTURE: PANORAMIC LANDSCAPES WITH RICHARD YOUNG March 2019 1

WELCOME TO ISSUE 17 OF NZ PHOTOGRAPHER MAGAZINE

HELLO EVERYONE, You'll notice an underlying theme of Love in this edition of NZ Photographer magazine which stems from us publishing the best submissions from our 'What is Love' competition â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Turn to page 31 to see who won. We have interviewed tramping and travel photographer Shaun Barnett and in Behind the Shot we discover Scott Cushman's love of fishing, in both of these articles we learn how it's possible to turn your passion into a money making career. We touched on Brendon's love story right back in issue 2 but now go deeper, understanding how ESP photography came to be and how photography became his passion â&#x20AC;&#x201C; It's an emotional story so you may need tissues at the ready, but just goes to show we never know what is around the next corner for us as humans or as photographers. Ana writes about getting on the path to becoming a happy photographer and how a love of photography can be used for a greater good than just taking shots for yourself. We also have another photo review and last but never least, Richard shares tips on taking panoramic photos.

Emily Goodwin

Editor NZ Photographer General Info: NZPhotographer Issue 17 March 2019 Cover Photo Shaun Barnett Sunset over Sinclair Head and Owhiro Bay

NZPhotographer

Publisher: Excio Group

Editor: Emily Goodwin

Website: www.excio.io/nzphotographer

Graphic Design: Maksim Topyrkin

Group Director: Ana Lyubich ana@excio.io

Advertising Enquiries: Phone 04 889 29 25 or Email hello@excio.io

REGULAR CONTRIBUTORS

Brendon Gilchrist

Ana Lyubich

Richard Young

Brendon is the man behind ESB Photography. He is an avid tramper who treks from sea to mountain, and back again, capturing the uniqueness of New Zealandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s unforgiving landscape.

Co-founder of Excio, Ana's photography journey started many years ago with one of the first Kodak film cameras. She loves exploring the unseen macro world and capturing genuine people's emotions.

Richard is an awardwinning landscape and wildlife photographer who teaches photography workshops and runs photography tours. He is the founder of New Zealand Photography Workshops.

nzphotographer

nzp_magazine

nzp@excio.io

ÂŠ 2019 NZPhotographer Magazine All rights reserved. Reproduction of any material appearing in this magazine in any form is forbidden without prior consent of the publisher. Disclaimer: Opinions of contributing authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of the magazine.

March 2019

CONTENTS

6 10 20 24 26 28 30

INTERVIEW WITH SHAUN BARNETT

BEHIND THE SHOT with Scott Cushman of Digital Fish INTERVIEW WITH SHAUN BARNETT HOW ESB PHOTOGRAPHY CAME TO BE by Brendon Gilchrist MIND GAME: BEING A HAPPY PHOTOGRAPHER by Ana Lyubich HOW TO CAPTURE: PANORAMIC LANDSCAPES by Richard Young

IMPROVING YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO REVIEW SESSION

MIND GAME: BEING A HAPPY PHOTOGRAPHER

IMPROVING YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY PHOTO REVIEW SESSION WHAT IS LOVE PHOTO COMPETITION WINNER & BEST ENTRIES

26 HOW TO CAPTURE: PANORAMIC LANDSCAPES

Behind The Shot

with Scott Cushman of Digital Fish HI SCOTT, TELL US ABOUT YOU! I’m based on the North Shore in Auckland and am a freelance writer, photographer, and videographer who works with recreational anglers but also industry people.

HOW DID YOU GET STARTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY? I was doing my OE and got into photography as a 20 year old when I decided to buy an old Pentax A3000 and start taking photographs. I took an online freelance course and started practising and developing my craft, starting with what I knew (fishing) and branching out from there. My photography has developed alongside my writing and as technology and media have changed, my fishing and photography kit have grown with video and then drone equipment being added.

TELL US ABOUT THIS JOHN DORY SHOT… We were out fishing, doing a story in the Hauraki Gulf and it was still early morning. The fish were slow on the bite but I pulled this up. I took a moment to get my camera out. It’s difficult to get the balance right – shooting or fishing because you need fish to photograph but then you need to be constantly thinking photos because you need to capture the moments. Building up a stock of images is essential to be able to produce copy month in and month out and the fish looked great in the water. I haven’t used it in a story yet but no doubt will pull it out for a story on catching John Dory.

WHY DO YOU LIKE THIS SHOT? The sun was low and the sea was darker because the sun wasn’t high in the sky but it still illuminated the John Dory nicely and made it stand out. The fish has very high dorsal fins (the ones on top of the body) which helps make it look more interesting. The fish was sitting at just the right angle to reflect the sun’s rays as well. John Dory are such an unusual looking fish, they make interesting subjects even for non-fishing people.

WHAT EQUIPMENT ARE YOU SHOOTING WITH? I currently shoot mostly using a Nikon D7200 with the Nikon 16– 80mm, Sigma 8–16mm, Nikon 80–400mm AFS, Nikon 40mm micro, and Tamron 60mm macro f2 lenses. I often have the ultra-wide or extreme telephoto on my camera but I have recently been using my 40mm micro 2.8 and I have been getting some satisfying images. The John Dory shot was with a Sony RX10 MkII which is an amazing piece of kit. I needed the smallest, best quality camera that could shoot stills and video and after reading about some of the guys working for National Geographic using them as back up and

NZPhotographer

F4, 1/250s, ISO200, 30mm

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F5.3, 1/640s, ISO100, 190mm

shooting B roll I bought one and find it exceptional for its size. Some of my fishing expeditions take me on long hikes with lots of gear so a full DSLR kit is not that appealing.

ANY TIPS FOR CAPTURING FISH PHOTOS IN GENERAL THAT YOU CAN SHARE WITH US? Fish always look their best in colour and posture when they have been just taken out of the water. They don’t look the same when they are dead. You can sometimes get some fantastic shots when the fish is still in the water as the water movement around it frames the fish and tells a great story of the animal in its element. Splashing water can add to the image too as my snapper in the water picture shows. Sometimes when the water is still and reflective, it can add an amazing quality to the photo too.

YOU ALSO SHOOT VIDEO AND HAVE A DRONE, TELL US MORE ABOUT THAT ASPECT OF YOUR WORK AND LINK US UP TO YOUR FAVOURITE VIDEO YOU’VE CREATED. This is probably my favourite video, Fishing is Awesome – Little Barrier. It’s not so much about fishing action but more the beauty of being out on the ocean and the amazing sights you see when out fishing. I have crashed a few drones over the years and have used a few different brands and still get nervous every time I try to launch a drone off a small boat. I was probably the first fishing show creator in New Zealand to start using a drone in my videos. It was funny because my first video with drone footage was shot on Rangitoto and as I was marvelling at my drone flying around I stepped back and tripped on the volcanic rock and slashed my hand (which was included in the video)!

WHAT TIPS WOULD YOU GIVE TO OTHERS ABOUT FOLLOWING THEIR PASSION AND MAKING MONEY FROM IT? Persistence pays off. My wife calls me a tortoise because I’m not a fast mover but I always cross the line. I am my own worse critic of my work so I am learning to appreciate it through the eyes of someone who would pay for/value my work and put a monetary value on my images. Being critical of your own work is important to motivate you to keep striving for greater and greater images but can also cause issues when you come to put a monetary value on your work. I fell into the trap (and still do) thinking that the best gear will make me more sales or vastly improve my photographs. I find myself too often dreaming about what next piece of kit I’m going to buy next and have to keep telling myself the truth – spending more time taking photographs and honing my craft will improve my work a lot faster with better results than buying more toys. I have realised that being self-employed takes lots of allround skills. You have to be a good learner and teach yourself things you’re not so interested in, as well as the things you are passionate about. Learning to be disciplined with your financial resources, learning how to best promote yourself (sometimes quite challenging for creatives) as well as being able to effectively communicate with and manage client’s expectations takes people skills you won’t immediately start out with. My motto this year is – be less passive and hopeful, more assertive and intentional.

WHERE CAN WE FIND YOU ONLINE?

FRESH SHOOTS PHOTO COMPETITION

We’re inviting photographers to highlight all the wonderful things that make the Wellington Botanic Garden much more than a garden, while encouraging photographers to focus on the garden season by season. For prizes and full Terms & Conditions see: www.excio.io/freshshoots The competition is split into quarterly competitions based on each of the seasons:

Summer

Autumn

15 December 22 March 2019

23 March 21 June 2019

Winter 22 June 20 September 2019

CATEGORIES

NATURE

PEOPLE & EVENTS PARTNERS

CREATIVE

Interview with Shaun Barnett HI SHAUN, WOULD YOU CARE TO INTRODUCE YOURSELF? I live in a Wellington house, nestled among trees, at the end of a path with 80 steps. The lounge windows outlook over the Remutaka Range and Cook Strait. My wife, Tania, and I have lived in the house for the last 20 years, and are raising our three children here who had to learn to walk uphill from a very young age! For the last 23 years, I have been a freelance writer and photographer, specialising in nature and the outdoors.

HOW AND WHEN DID YOU GET STARTED IN PHOTOGRAPHY? My first camera was a cheap, crappy Kodak one that came free with the Pink Batts when my parents were building a house. It took tiny strips of 110 negative film which produced very poor quality prints. Nevertheless, I got a taste for taking photographs, and by the time I went to university, had decided to get a decent 35mm camera, my first being a Pentax P30. After completing a science degree and parks and recreation diploma in the early 1990s, I began working for the Department of Conservation, and at the same time started selling photographs – initially to Craig Potton Publishing for their diaries and calendars, and also through the Hedgehog House Photo library run by Christchurch photographer Colin Monteath. In the mid‑1990s, I converted to Nikon cameras, starting with an F100. For most of the 2000s, I also shot medium format transparencies using a Mamiya 6X7, but started a bit late… digital was already starting to be a game changer.

WHAT EQUIPMENT ARE YOU SHOOTING WITH NOW? I bought my first digital Nikon, a D700, in 2009. Recently I purchased a D850, which I love. It’s beautiful to hold, even one-handed, and I find Nikon cameras especially intuitive to use. I have a variety of lenses, mostly Nikon, and a carbon fibre Really Right Stuff tripod which is excellent for lugging around on a tramping pack as it is stable but light. I use graduated neutral density filters to hold back the exposure in bright skies, and – sparingly – a polarising filter when there are unwanted reflections.

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YOU HAVE A PASSION FOR TRAMPING AND TRAVEL, TELL US HOW THAT STARTED… I started tramping as a teenager, living in Hawke’s Bay, and have since tramped all over New Zealand, including a piecemeal traverse of the Southern Alps from St Arnaud to Milford Sound. As a young man, I was solely interested in New Zealand, but after meeting Tania, who loves to travel (and had been doing trips with her parents since she was a young girl), I began travelling too. We spent eight months in Alaska, the Canadian Rockies and South America in 1997–98, tramping, kayaking and travelling. And in the year we got married, we trekked the Annapurna Circuit in Nepal. Tania opened my eyes to the world. We’ve since taken our children overseas, to California, Italy, the UK and Ireland. My most recent trip was to Iceland, helping Rob Brown lead a group of photographers around there. A remarkable country, scenically diverse and striking, but also with a fascinating history, discovered by Irish monks who went there in tiny boatskin coracles.

ROCK OUTCROP NEAR MAKIRIKIRI, RUAHINE RANGE, HAWKE'S BAY.

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HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY STYLE? I like to work slowly, usually on a tripod, but as I also like to move on and tramp to new sights and places; I don’t quite have the patience of my friends Rob Brown or Craig Potton – who will wait at the right location for the right light longer than me. I’m not a purist in the American nature photography tradition, in that I often include people, or tracks, or huts in my images. I like bold colours, but don’t favour HDR, and I think many landscape images are overprocessed. I’m guilty of it sometimes too. I’ve been influenced by nature photographers: the American masters like Ansel Adams and (my favourite) Eliot Porter; and also New Zealanders Craig Potton, Andris Apse, Rob Brown and Colin Monteath. Other New Zealand photographers I greatly admire are Brain Brake, Jane Ussher, Marti Friedlander and Ans Westra – especially for their skills at photographing people. Landscape photographers whose work I also appreciate are Tasmanian Peter Dombrovski and Scotland’s Joe Cornish. I’ll confess to being pretty ignorant about younger photographers. I’m not a perfectionist, nor especially technically brilliant. I mostly want to capture something of the flavour of my outdoor or travel experiences. That’s more important to me than getting something pristinely perfect. I like rocks and water, patterns in nature and have been experimenting recently with stitching together portrait

FJALLABACK NATURE RESERVE, ICELAND

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shots to make landscape panoramas – inspired by my fellow photographer and friend Peter Laurenson. I also like being able to use my photography for a purpose. I’ve donated images to help with conservation campaigns – taking a leaf out of Craig Potton’s book, whose career has combined photography and advocacy to help stop native tree logging, and to get national parks created. I think that’s a significant reason why his photography has been so enduring. He’s not only a great photographer, but has a real passion and deep commitment to nature. I guess I’m saying that photography should sometimes be concerned with more than just making a pretty picture.

WHAT HAS BEEN YOUR BIGGEST CHALLENGE AS A PHOTOGRAPHER? Adapting to the digital age. Like many photographers who had learned the difficult art of mastering slide film, I found the switch to digital painful. It was like confronting a new language. Raw files need lots of work to get anything like the saturation and contrast of a well-exposed transparency. I’m a late adopter of technology, because I have no great love of it, except as a tool to record what I want. So when I finally went fully digital in 2009, I was way behind the game, and had a lot of catch-up to do. I still don’t feel I’ve mastered how to process images exactly how I would like (I use Lightroom), but I’m getting better.

WHARIWHARANGI BAY COASTAL TRACK

BIG-HORN SHEEP IN ALBERTA, CANADA

WHARARIKI BEACH, GOLDEN BAY

DOMINIE BIV AT DAWN I do concede that the advantages of digital now largely outweigh film: the dynamic range, the option to choose ISO per shot, the ability to get immediate feedback are all great attributes of digital. However, those attributes have flip sides. With digital, you tend to shoot too much, and not think enough about composition, like you had to with film, because it cost to take every shot. And I see some people spending too much time checking their screen, even when the light before them is going off! Then, back at your computer at home, the temptation to over-process is so much greater.

WHERE ARE YOUR FAVOURITE PLACES? I love Wellington’s South coast (where I live) more each year. I also have a particular fondness for the mountains of Hawke’s Bay, where I started tramping, partly because of nostalgia, and partly because they are under-rated. The biological and geological diversity of Kahurangi National Park makes it a pretty special place too. Overseas, I have a particular fondness for Tasmania, having spent seven weeks tramping and taking photographs there. Patagonia and Alaska are wild, huge landscapes with astonishing mountains, where I would like to return. The Skellig Islands, off Ireland’s south-western coast, are one of the most amazing

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cultural sites I’ve visited. Irish monks lived there for 600 years in conditions of abject poverty and hardship, existing in tiny stone huts. I was also mesmerised by a visit to Iceland in 2016, and I hope to return there next year with Rob Brown to lead a trekking group.

TELL US ABOUT YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY AND WRITING CAREER, HOW DID IT START AND WHERE ARE YOU AT TODAY? For a couple of years early on I recorded my adventures using print film, with mixed results, but still took it seriously enough to use a tripod. However, it was a pivotal trip in 1990 with my friend Rob Brown that saw us both switch to slide film (this was then the standard if you wanted to get published in colour). On a weekend trip around the Pouakai circuit in Taranaki, Rob and I challenged each other to get the best images. This sparked healthy competition between us, which has continued as co-operation and friendship to this day. We both started selling photographs at roughly the same time in the early 1990s and would both lug enormously heavy packs with a 35mm and medium format camera (Rob took a large format 4X5 view camera), plus a range of lenses, flash and tripod, often having 8+ kilograms of camera gear each – plus

food and gear for whatever trip we were doing. We did a month long tramp from Mt Cook to Arthur’s Pass, and both carried packs weighiing more than 32 kilograms. Back in those bad old days of film (we used 50 ISO film because it had the finest grain) taking a tripod was essential. If you got it right (not always guaranteed as you didn’t know until it was too late) side film like Fuji Velvia gave crisp, richly saturated images with fine grain, which was usually impossible for any amateur hand-holding their camera. Now, the huge reach of instantly changeable ISO digital has eroded much of that advantage away. After working as a DOC ranger for four years, I decided to give freelance photography and writing a go. I wrote articles mainly as a way to be able to sell more photographs, and contributed to local newspapers, and magazines, such as New Zealand Geographic, Forest & Bird and Wilderness magazine. I also contributed to Geo Australasia, Action Asia, and some UK travel magazines. After Tania and I got back from South America, Rob Brown told me he wanted to work together on a book, which was our first, Classic Tramping in New Zealand (1999) – published by Craig Potton Publishing. It combined photographs with thoughtful essays on some of the harder of the well-known tramps, and won a Montana Book Award in 2000. About that time, I also got a lucky break when David Hall, publisher of New Zealand Wilderness magazine, asked me to be editor, which I did for three-and-a-half years. Rob Brown and I continued to work together, and have since completed two more books, Shelter from the Storm (2012) and A Bunk for the Night (2016), with a mutual tramping friend, Geoff Spearpoint. I have also written three guidebooks, a book on New Zealand natural history, and Tramping, A New Zealand History (2014) with Chris Maclean. I also edited the Federated Mountain Club’s Backcountry/FMC Bulletin for 10 years. In between times, I sold photographs to a range of calendars, overseas publications, books, and have had over 1000 articles published. Occasionally I’ve done commercial photography, such as recording the annual Wellington marathon, but it’s not really my strength. Recently I’ve begun instructing outdoor photography with friend Richard Young (New Zealand Photography Workshops), who is a talented teacher and much better with technology than I am. I’ve learnt a great deal working with him, and loved seeing the results that people can get with a bit of encouragement and tuition. I’ve also just completed a book with Chris Maclean called Leading the Way, a centennial history of the Tararua Tramping Club, which celebrates its 100th birthday this July.

WHAT WISDOM CAN YOU SHARE WITH US ABOUT GETTING PHOTOS PUBLISHED? The key thing about getting published is developing knowledge of the publication, and trying to establish some sort of working relationship with the editor. That’s really hard when you start out, and something you have to renew every time a magazine changes its editor too. The best piece of advice I can give is: don’t be casual about making a submission to a magazine or pitching a book idea. Find out what the magazine or publisher needs. Read the magazine. Know the publisher’s previous work (the worst thing you can do it pitch an idea that they have just covered). Think hard about what the readers might want, edit your own work hard, and don’t expect a quick response. Editors get hundreds of submissions. In this online age, I also think people are too willing to present all or most of their work online, when that effectively kills the surprise or the originality of a fresh shot. Print magazines and book publishers like to have impact by first presenting something in their pages, and only later having it reproduced online on their website or your website. Old-school thinking, I know. That brings me to the whole conundrum of online versus print. What you can earn through photography has greatly declined over the last 10 to 15 years because many people are willing to put everything online, and to sell it for nothing. For that reason, photo libraries are almost dead. Websites are a great tool for showcasing your work to the world, but by saturation (excuse the pun) and devaluing the work photographers do, we are making it harder and harder to earn a living from it. There are lots of parallels there with the music industry, or any other creative pursuit. If photographers are to make a living, we have to value our work better than that.

ANY INSPIRING WORDS TO LEAVE US WITH ABOUT FOLLOWING YOUR PASSION? Collaborate. Work with other people, and adopt a co-operative rather than a competitive attitude with other photographers. You’ll learn more, have more fun, and probably develop your own style faster. Diversity. You have to be willing to shoot what people want. Creating the most artistic beautiful image in the world might be a valid goal, but for magazine and books you need to shoot lots of different styles, and to some degree meet an audience’s expectations. To survive as an outdoor photographer in New Zealand you have to be diverse and adaptable. Shoot what you love and learn about it. To get good images of anything, I think you need some empathy with the subject and some knowledge of it. What is that alpine flower? Who is that person, and what is their story? What is the history behind that hut?

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Others are better judges. It’s hard to evaluate your own work because you were there when the photo was made and you know how hard you might have worked to get that image. But that doesn’t mean anything to someone viewing the image in isolation from the place where it was made. My publisher Robbie Burton, while not a photographer himself (and perhaps that helps), has a very good aesthetic sense, and I’ve learned to trust his judgement implicitly. He’ll often choose an image I had disregarded, or reject something I thought was really good. Know when to put the camera down. Photography can be the greatest avenue to arouse curiosity, to unleash creativity, or to record what you care about. But it can be intrusive, and can destroy an experience. Once, I grew frustrated trying to photograph a Robin, which would not stay still long enough for me to get a decent shot. Then I realised my attitude was wrong. I needed to put my camera down, stop trying to shoot the bird, and instead enjoy the experience of interacting with a friendly native creature. Similarly, when travelling overseas, sometimes it is just not appropriate to treat the locals as photographic subjects, and if they don’t want their photo taken you should respect that. I think we can fool ourselves that just because we have a camera, we have licence to shoot whatever we like.

TRAMPERS AT BIGGS TOP, WEST COAST

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DO YOU HAVE AN OVERALL FAVOURITE PHOTO? One of my favourite shots is one I took on slide film during a snowfall at Harper Pass Bivouac, in Canterbury’s Lake Sumner Forest Park. It’s the only shot of my own that I have printed and framed on the wall at home. It’s possibly a bit grainy, but I like the tracery of the slow shutter speed snowflakes streaking over the background, and the almost painting-like effect it has with the leafless trees behind. And of course, the orange hut provides a contrast with the brooding colours of a forest in bad weather.

WHERE CAN WE FIND YOU ONLINE? I don’t have a website yet (that’s my plan for this year!) but you can find out more about me and see my work at: www.photographyworkshops.co.nz

www.hedgehoghouse.com

www.pottonandburton.co.nz

SNOW STORM AT HAPERS PASS BIV, CANTERBURY

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How ESB Photography Came To Be

by Brendon Gilchrist y passion for photography did not start until the end of May 2012. But let us wind back a few years further to understand where the heart of ESB beats from.

You see, “ES” is the nickname of my late wife Ester who passed away in 2012. “B” stands for Brendon, my name. I met Ester through a friend at church and we got on so well I ended up moving in with her, her sister and partner, niece and nephew. It was one big family in one 3 bedroom house. A few years later we moved to Lower Hutt where we lived til 2008 which was the year we got married. We were so happy, everything was perfect. Ester had come home a few months before and said, “I want to be a dental hygienist”. So I said ok and we packed up our bags and moved to Dunedin where she began her Bachelor of Oral Health at Otago University.

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Due to difficulty in finding full-time work in Dunedin I ended up moving back to my sister-in-law’s house in Christchurch where I got a job at the Ibis hotel. I had been in Christchurch less than 6 months when the February earthquake hit – I was standing in a doorway on the 7th floor of the hotel waiting for the building to collapse. Everything was moving; the beds going from wall to wall, the power going on and off, dust everywhere. It was a big quake and I had no communication with Ester or other family for at least 6 hours. I was made redundant after this so I moved back to Dunedin to be with Ester but ended up moving back to Christchurch a few months later to start a job at NZ Post. Once Ester finished her studies we moved our belongings back to Christchurch to a house of our own but all was not well as Ester was sick. She was sore, tired and vomiting a lot. She went to the doctors, and after a number of different tests and scans we found out she had gastric cancer.

Hearing those words was like the Ibis building collapsing on our world. She was given a new job at the Christchurch DHB on the Wednesday and diagnosed with cancer on the Friday. How can you receive such amazing news, only to then receive such devastating news and the realization that the love of your life only has weeks to live? We were in and out of the hospital for treatments to make Ester more comfortable but the cancer had spread to her lymph nodes and had become too aggressive for doctors to attempt surgery – There was nothing they could do. It was hard to watch someone so healthy and active become bedridden within a few weeks. Despite her sickness and lack of strength, when Ester heard that her sister was giving birth she got up and made it to the hospital in time to cut his umbilical cord. Ester named him Esten after her. Ester knew the week before that she was not going to live much longer. She told me to take the week off work. She passed away with me holding her hand. She left this world in peace, just her and me, no one else around on May 11th 2012. That is a small part of my story of when Ester left this world. People said my world was going to end and they were right – it did, but a new one began.

WHY DID I START PHOTOGRAPHY? I was sitting on the couch with my dad, and I had this random thought – I need to buy a camera! So the next day we went to a camera shop and I bought a Sony A57 (the landscape photos here were some of my first with this camera) using money Ester had saved. I had no idea what I was

doing, I had no idea where my story was going to take me (and still don’t where this journey will end!). This wasn’t my first foray into photography as such, I had always enjoyed taking photos and used to take a small compact camera in my back pocket while riding my bike (the hobby I was most passionate about before), taking snaps of places around the Port Hills and posting them on Facebook. It’s funny because Ester used to tell me to stop posting the photos online as she found it annoying! Fast forward to today and here I am, a passionate photographer. I love nature, getting out into the bush, going for a walk, taking the time to watch the waves, watch the clouds, explore new locations and share the beauty. From broken to whole, photography is a place where I can forget about the world and recharge my body, refreshen my soul. It is like fuel for me, a place where I forget everything and capture the beauty in front of me mentally and artistically. I want to leave a story behind that will inspire other people, letting them know that there is a new door of opportunity behind the one that has suddenly closed. After Ester’s death, many people told me that time heals, but I disagree – time changes but it doesn’t heal. You can’t heal a scar on your body, and you for sure can’t heal a scar on your heart. Ester was such a strong and amazing woman, someone who was active, cared for people and was always smiling and making silly jokes. This is the heart of ESB Photography. It is a dedication to something that was, till death do us part. My dedication to what we were will continue until

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I finish my life on this earth. It’s my story to say to the world that love never dies, it never stops. Family will always be family and those memories will be treasured forever. Life should not be lived without LOVE though. The passion I have for what I want to do and where I want to go is something that drives me to want to be better. I use a sport mentality to describe what I feel with photography, it’s of losing in a game of basketball but not wanting to lose in life, the fight in me wants to win at any cost. I do what others won’t do and risk whatever it takes to get what others won’t risk. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn’t but that is the story of life. Keep trying until you see your vision come to pass. If you don’t take that shot (in terms of basketball) it will never go in, if you do and it goes in there is a high chance you can use that energy to do the same again. Emotions are the most powerful force on this earth and if you do not harness the power of your emotions you will never see your full potential. The future of photography for me, the story of my life, and where I want the story to go next is a difficult one for me to answer.

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Living in New Zealand has its benefits. We have everything you could ever want to witness and photograph, but the world is also waiting. Number one on my list of places I really want to visit is Antarctica as it has interested me for many, many years. Next on my bucketlist are Greenland, Norway, Israel, Jordan and other countries in that area. As you’ll know from reading my articles, I love history and discovering the stories from any place I visit. I have a vision of a book about how photography helped me heal. I want people who have been through similar events in life to know that they are not alone and being young I believe this story needs to be heard so people can relate to the raw emotions of how cancer affects your whole life. A book not solely based on photography but a book where photos show beauty when all you might feel is darkness. When the time is right I would like to step into workshops too, to teach my passion for what I have taught myself and to keep working on my biggest dream to one day be a full-time photographer. Let’s see where my story takes me and how life unfolds from here!

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MIND GAME: Being A Happy Photographer

hen you talk to people and say that you are a lawyer, doctor, an accountant or anyone else with a stable and predictable income stream you can feel people’s respect. When the next minute you mention “Oh and I’m also a photographer!” that respect often diminishes. Believe me, as an accountant with more than 10 years 9–5 office experience I know what it feels like. It’s great when you have support from your family and friends regarding your photography, but more often than not people cannot understand what on earth you are talking about or worse, will try to turn your passion (whether it’s a hobby or part-time career) into something else. Have you heard phrases like “Why do you need that new lens for $1000?!” or “Who is going to care about your photos?” If this sounds familiar, welcome to the club!

The above doesn’t just relate to photography, but for other hobbies too – I, for example, wouldn’t have a clue about the equipment a fisher might spend his or her money on nor how much time they spend out on the water.

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by Ana Lyubich This is why it’s so important to find your tribe, so that you can always talk to someone who not only understands your passion for photography but who can also give you good advice, someone who you can share your thoughts with and lean on when support is needed whether emotionally or technically! When it comes to photography, it is more common to see “lone wolves” on the street or in the field than herds of photographers wandering around, so this hobby can be as lonely but also as fulfilling as you want it to be. Communities and meetup groups are a good place to start when seeking to find your tribe – Every time you go on a photo walk you will meet like-minded people, discover something new, see who else is in the same boat as you and learn what they are doing. The second thing to fully realise is that you can make a difference in someone’s life or even in the world if you are a photographer. Wherever you are with your camera you have that unique opportunity to capture something happening in that exact moment that no one else had, has or will ever have.

Landscapes change, seasons pass, people grow older, ecosystems evolve and so on. You can participate in projects helping people or organisations with your passion and when something happens as a result of that it will be one of the best and memorable moments of your life. Say you volunteer for a local foster care and take photos of the gorgeous inhabitants, it will very likely be your photograph that soon-to-be adoptive parents see first, that spark in the eye of that one little girl grabbing at their heartstrings because you managed to capture her looking just so in that split second of time. This isn’t to say that you must give everything up and start volunteering, but if you ever doubt whether your photography is of any value, remember that you can go out and create the value. So, we’ve covered the social and fulfilment sides of being a photographer but another major advantage of loving your camera and developing some photography skills is that you have an opportunity to express and understand yourself in a way that non-creatives don’t. No matter what niche of photography you are into, nor how often you go out with your camera, photography allows you to show your inner world to others and is a great therapy to relieve stress and anxiety. I’m pretty sure you all experience the same feeling that I do when I pick up my camera; the world just

disappears – whatever was happening a few minutes ago doesn’t matter anymore. It’s important to try and stay in this creative zone after you’ve clicked the shutter and are at home viewing your images on the big screen. Take time to analyse the shot, think back to why you captured the scene from that exact angle, was there a specific reason? What would you like to do differently next time? Thinking these thoughts helped me to understand myself better. You see, I always wondered why I love macro. I have tried other genres and while I really enjoy taking landscape shots and also portraits, I tend to gravitate towards capturing the mini-world. The reason was quite obvious when I stopped to think about it – I’ve always been short-sighted, I can see things up close very well with or without glasses, but can’t see well enough in the long distance. The fact that even as a child I could see some extremely small things and small print that adults couldn’t was fascinating! I could see what other people could not. Now, with my camera, I can show people that there is a completely different universe existing right nearby that most don’t see. Being a photographer may not be an easy choice and shouldn’t always be a job, but if you have a love for photography be sure to carry it with you throughout life as it will not only bring joy to you but people around the world.

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HOW TO CAPTURE: PANORAMIC LANDSCAPES

Capture landscapes in a new perspective with panoramic photography tips by Richard Young

6x17 Panoramas: Autumn Lake Wanaka and View over Dusky Sound SUBJECT: The best locations for panoramic images are places that overlook the landscape, i.e. standing on the top of a mountain, looking down from an elevated viewpoint, or on the shore of a lake. COMPOSITION: Unless you have specialised calibrated panoramic equipment avoid taking photos with objects in the immediate foreground. Photos with objects in the foreground can be difficult to stitch together and can result in a distorted image. LIGHTING: The best light of the day is usually early morning or late during the “Golden Hour” when low light shows more detail across the landscape. It is important to shoot a panorama that has even light from one side to the other, else it will lead to problems with overall exposure so do consider your angle to the sun.

QUICK GUIDE TO SHOOTING A PANORAMA 1. Set your tripod on a firm surface and check it is level. 2. Set all camera settings to manual, including white balance. 3. Check camera focus and then disable autofocus. 4. Take a single picture and check the exposure. 5. Start your pano from the left. Take your first photo and rotate the camera right, allowing images to overlap by at least 20%. 6. Visually inspect all images on the LCD screen to make sure that you do not have any problems with your setup.

CAPTURE GRAND LANDSCAPE PANORAMAS OF THE SOUTH ISLAND ON A 4-DAY FIORDLAND PHOTOGRAPHY TOUR THIS AUTUMN WITH NEW ZEALAND PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOPS

A new generation community for passionate photographers and image lovers Proven to increase awareness of your photography, improve your skills and give you the confidence to succeed.

LEARN MORE www.excio.io

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Improving Your Photography Photo Review Session

PADDOCK BAY BY JACQUI SCOTT

REVIEW BY: ALMIN VRANAC

by Excio

F8, ISO400

INITIAL THOUGHTS

the waterside. Of course, the great thing behind this shot was selecting the aperture at 8 f-stops, which gives the photo a less shallow depth of field which is needed to achieve this kind of look.

The most appealing thing I absolutely love about this photo is the composition. Combining three different elements in a photo (in this particular photo, the waterside, land, and mountains in the distance) is not always easy to capture correctly and is what really makes this photo appealing. Combining different distances is always a great idea to give depth to a photo, having the mountains in the background while at the same time maintaining the focus on

The second thing which is also nicely done in this photo is the contrasting colour. To be precise, the bright colours of the bushes and trees between the more dark colours of the water and the mountains makes the seaside really stand out and creates a perfect photo harmony from a colour standpoint. Colour contrasting is a well respected technique in photography as it makes the scene more interesting to the viewer.

2013 Winner of Sony’s ‘Record Your Move’.

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The third thing that is a great aspect of this photo is the reflection of the land in the water. Capturing reflections of any objects from the scene gives the photo a more artistic feel. For this particular photo, with the bright colours of the trees, capturing reflections makes even more sense because of the vibrant bright reflections in the water

POSSIBLE IMPROVEMENTS There isnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t too much to improve in this photo, as it is photographed really well, respecting the most important rules in photography. With this said, there are still some things I personally would improve. I feel that the symmetry of the land area in this photo could be improved. What do I mean? The empty and the less dense area of the trees on the landside on the left side of the photo, itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s not quite symmetrical to the other side and symmetry is something that we should always aim for in photography. See the photo explanation below to get a better understanding;

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The outlined area is the ‘empty’ space that makes the land area nonsymmetrical which is disrupting the flow of the photo in the symmetry aspect. There are two main ways we can fix this: Correcting the photo in post production with a pretty easy technique - cropping. As you can see, when symmetry is achieved, the photo looks a lot better even though the cropping has its bad points. It’s always better to keep the original crop of the photo for numerous reasons, especially in landscape photography and it’s also worth mentioning that we’re not going to be always able to crop the photo because of of other photography rules and sometimes solely because our main subject loses the focus it had without the crop. With cropping, it mostly comes down to weighting on what is more

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important to the photo, the symmetry or some other aspect. A better but more demanding way of solving this problem would be to try to angle the shot before taking the photo in a way that captures the scene in a symmetrical manner. For this particular photo, you may have been able to shift the scene a little to the right before taking the photo, just enough to cover that empty area of the left side. Remember, taking a few shots is always a good idea so you can choose the best shot later. IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO IMPROVE YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY, JOIN EXCIO TO GET FRIENDLY ADVICE AND SUPPORT. WWW.EXCIO.IO

What is Love Photo Competition Winner & Best Entries Judged by Eugene Li and Darius Stevens

WINNER:

Angela Jury HIGHLY COMMENDED: Cara Rintoul Xiao Huan Carolina Monserrat Yogita Parag