Supermoon!

This is one of those images I took as an experiment – almost 3 years ago to the day – and then promptly forgot about. Ideally these shots are supposed to have landmarks in the foreground to give a sense of scale, but unfortunately the moon did not cooperate and decided to rise over a largely unpopulated part of Wellington Harbour, and I think I chose the wrong location to shoot it from! I’ll be better prepared the next time one comes around …

NZIPP Awards 2014 – Illustrative Category

And finally, here is my Bronze winning image in the Illustrative category at last year’s New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography’s awards.

NZIPP Awards 2014 – Portrait (Classic) Category

 

Here are my winning images in the Portrait (Classic) category at last year’s New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography’s awards. The violinist won Silver, and the other three, Bronzes.

NZIPP Awards 2014 – Travel Category

It has been ages since I have posted anything on this site – I have been far too busy with the photography day job!

I thought I’d start again with a bit of a catch up. Toward the end of last year, I was thrilled to receive five Bronze Awards, one Silver Award, and a Silver with Distinction, at the New Zealand Institute of Professional Photography’s 2014 awards. The first two (above) were in the Travel Category: Cats of the Old City (Silver with Distinction), and Domino (Bronze). I have previously posted Domino on this blog before, as well as a variation on Cats of the Old City. Both were taken during travels to Croatia.

I will post my winning images from the Portrait (Classic) Category, and the Illustrative Category, in my next two posts.

The lake

I just so love my iPhone! I took this image of Lake Ohau on my phone while I was in New Zealand’s South Island recently covering a wedding held at this beautiful spot – not, of course, using my iPhone for that!

The camel drivers

These “ships of the desert” are still ridden in Jordan, with this image taken at the fabulous UNESCO World Heritage site of Petra. This earlier post shows some of the traditional cave homes of the Bedouin at Petra.

Adopt a shelter pet!

I love animals, and over the years have had both dogs and cats. Currently I have three adorable cats, Khensu, Azgard and Xerxes – down from four at the beginning of this year, when my lovely little old lady cat, Nyxie, passed away.

I’m fortunate that I can combine my passion for animals and photography by doing pet portraits. Also, I help out at a local cat shelter, and for the last two years donated my time to design and photograph the shelter’s fundraising calendar. Here are the main images from the 2014 calendar, which I thought I’d share with followers on my personal photo blog. Thanks to Linda MacManus who did the text.

If you are thinking about getting a pet, I would really encourage everyone to take a look at your local shelter first before heading off to the pet store, because there are always abandoned animals looking for a new ‘forever home’. Animal shelters all around the world rely on donations and keen volunteers – an earlier blog post featured the great work being done by a group of passionate animal lovers in Split, Croatia.

Lawrence of Arabia’s tree

This lonely tree is in the spectacular Wadi Rum, Jordan: location for much of the filming of the 1962 classic, Lawrence of Arabia, and the real T.E. Lawrence passed through Wadi Rum many times. Our Bedouin guide – pictured in this earlier post, photographing the desert sunset – was happy, for a small fee, to show us ‘special’ filming spots!

Within

Keeping with the iPhone theme of my last blog post, today I took these Hipstamatic double exposures of my awesome lighting assistant Simon, while I was waiting for a corporate portrait client to arrive. Within a short time of uploading them to Facebook, I found that one of them had been featured on the HipstaChallenge Facebook site. Thanks to Samuel at HipstaChallenge for the title: ‘Within’.

Down at the seashore

It’s been a while since I’ve posted an iPhone image. I took this shot earlier this week using the cool Polamatic app, on the warmest evening of summer so far, down at my local beach. The beach is only five minutes walk away from where we live, and featured in this earlier blog post.