I've never been one to be part of an organized tour group. It never works out for any photography other than grab snapshots. The tour director is always in control of timetables, travel and meals, and those never seem to work out in terms of the best light for photography.  That's why Kathy and I left a good two hours before the first tour buses to head out to Milford Sound.  I wanted to be there for sunrise.  Unfortunately, it was one of those rare cloudless Milford mornings and at best, the sunrise shots at Milford are mediocre at best.  Milford is one of those locations that has been photographed to death. Nevertheless, I wanted my chance at it. So at 5AM on Tuesday morning (New Zealand time) we headed for Milford Sound.  We meet no one enroute other than two unlucky possums that happened to be crossing the road at the wrong place and time. Unfortunately, New Zealand is reputed to have well over a billion of the varmints roaming their woodlands thanks to an unfortunate importation years ago.

Shortly before reaching the summit and tunnel on the way to Milford, I took the opportunity for another night sky shot of the peaks and a glacier under a half moonlit morning about an hour before dawn.

After that time out we continued on to Milford. I wandered around checking out some of the known shooting spots and found none that really excited me.  The real issue is the fact that shooting the sound I had to shoot in a westerly direction and sunrise is from the east. With a cloudless morning the sky is, needless to say, dull. Here is one shot of many from yesterday morning.

With that obligatory effort out of the way we relaxed till our 10:15 am departure of our Milford Sound tour boat. We chose a small boat with a 2.5 hour tour. The boat ride around the sound was far more interesting than the sunrise and I heartily recommend a ride on the Milford Sound as a must do.  Lots of waterfalls, seals, kayakers, more waterfalls, drinking glacier water, etc., and shot opportunities--even handheld without a tripod. Here are a few of those.

Needless to say, I'll be creating a New Zealand gallery when I return and have had an opportunity to process all my images.  Today we head to Queenstown to spend a couple of days before heading home with a stop in Tahiti.

It's Sunday evening New Zealand time and Kathy and I have arrived in Te Anau, considered the gateway to Fiordland National Park, the location of Milford Sound and the famous Milford Trek. Enroute, we spent an overnight at the small town of Fox Glacier.  While I wasn't particularly impressed with Fox or Franz Joseph Glaciers, I thoroughly enjoyed time around Lake Matheson. My first visit was an attempt to photograph Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook reflections. Unfortunately, there was just enough of a breeze to disturb the lake surface, making a reflection shot an impossibility. My next thought was to capture a sunrise reflection, so early the next morning I headed back to Lake Matheson. Arriving at the lake I found ground fog made that an impossibility. But arriving before sunrise and under a full moon, I took advantage of the situation to capture a shot of the moon and the mist of the fog rising around trees in a pasture next to the lake.  Unless noted, all images were taken with a Pentax 645D digital format camera.

I also grabbed a shot of Mt Tasman and Mt Cook illuminated by the full moon.  This shot almost looks like a daytime shot although the faint stars in the blue sky give it away as a night shot.  The moonlight is the same color temperature, for all practical purposes, as sunlight, only dimmer, because it is reflected sunlight.  All that is required to capture moonlight images is a tripod and a camera with manual controls allowing time exposures.

Two days later on the motor trek to Milford, we took a diversion to the southeast coastal town of Oamaru, just north of the beach that is the home of the Moeraki Boulders, spherical rocks that were formed on the seafloor bottom in a process similar in some respects to the way a pearl is formed.  Do a Google search if you want to learn the details. They offer unique photographic opportunities but not during the midday when the tide is low and the tourists are out.  The first picture is a mundane shot of one of the boulders in the afternoon, no water, just seaweed surrounding it. Not a particularly interesting picture.  The next series of images were taken Sunday morning in a light rain, using a tripod and time exposures to allow the flowing water to create a silky, surrealistic look.  The overcast steals almost all the color creating a monochromatic, black and white look to the images.  I find them far more interesting than shots I took the previous afternoon.

I'm looking forward to some excellent landscape shooting while here in the Milford area...more to come in a few days.

Monday

A midday flight took us from Auckland to Christchurch, where we picked up our rental car and headed for Arthur's Pass, about half way between Christchurch and the west coast of the south island.  We spent the night at a working sheep ranch. Unfortunately, dark, overcast skies both at sunset and sunrise, eliminated any meaningful photo opportunities.

Tuesday

Leaving Arthur's Pass area in a light rain, we drove on up to Westport, on the NW New Zealand coast. The drive reminded us of the Oregon coast with lush, green vegetation.  By late afternoon skies had brightened a bit and I spent sunset hours at Cape Foul Wind shooting some interesting rock and cliff formations.  Then on to our stay at Queen Street B&B, with our hosts, Helena Fierlinger and Duncan Bennett.  Coincidentally, both are accomplished photographers and we had some great conversations. Duncan has spent a great amount of time traveling, particularly in Antarctica and the Artic, as well as an eighteen month journey, literally around the world, shooting over 30,000 frames and all on film! Duncan is yet to be converted to digital although I sense he could be weakening.

Wednesday

We headed out early to Karamea on the NW coast and Kahurangi National Park to hike and photograph the limestone arches, which by the standards of the US National Park Service and the rangers at Arches National Park, would be judged as natural bridges rather than arches, as water runs underneath them. Regardless, very impressive and I spent several hours photographing with my 645D and K5 systems.

Also interesting was the very dark coffee-colored water as a result of the tannic acid deposited by decaying plant matter.  Wishing we had more time for exploration, we left Karamea and headed south to Westport and our final night with Helena and Duncan.

Thursday

We drove south to Franz Joseph and Fox Glaciers.  Some nice views but our first mild disappointments.  Neither compare to the ice fields in Patagonia.  Perito Moreno Glacier in Glaciers National Park, Argentina and Lago Grey Glacier in Torres del Paine, Chile, simply outclass them. But we did have a nice hike around Lake Matheson with shots of Mt. Tasman and Mt. Cook in the background.

More to come...time for bed and sleep.