Point Halswell, New Zealand – May 7, 2018
Over roughly the last 24 hours, I have made nearly 300 photographs. Readers, please do not despair. This entry does not contain that many!
Leslie and I intended to travel to Point Halswell on Miramar Peninsula to capture the sunset. Once the sun was down, I wanted to photograph the lights of the City of Wellington across Wellington Harbour. Unfortunately, when we arrived, the conditions did not lend themselves to either endeavor. It was very windy. The wind gusts were about 78 km/h (48 mph). That meant there was a lot of haze in the area.
Even though Plan A was off, I moved to Plan B; taking advantage of the beautiful colors courtesy of the late afternoon sunlight. Part of Plan B included using my wireless shutter release remote. I had never used it before…as the photographic evidence attests! Before I made the first shot, I knew the shadow of my tripod was in the view. However, I thought my body might be far enough away so that my shadow was out of sight …wrong! My next brilliant idea was to use the two-second delay. Surely that would be enough time for me to run my shadow out of the frame…wrong! Apparently, it takes quite a while to relocate this mass. Oh well, it is all about learning, I guess.
Once I got my wings, so to speak, I noticed a flock of water birds. The birds hovered on the wind above the water and then dove into the water. There was a shoal of fish there that was on the birds’ menu. It did not last long there. That makes sense. If I were in a shoal, I would continue moving along, trying to get away from those pesky birds.
When the flock flew behind me, there was a male and female seagull that remained behind, perched on a rock. I can only assume they had had their fill of fish. They just stood there, watching everything else unfold. After a while, another female stopped on an adjacent rock.
Leslie and I turned around and drove back home.
The next morning, we were on the road at 04:00. We drove to the Owhiro Bay area to experiment with star photography. My results were not “stellar”…but it was enjoyable. There is a reasonably well-lit foreground in many of the shots because there was a half-moon directly overhead. It provided a lot of light.
While we were there, we saw several ships moving through the Cook Strait. We also saw a lot of shooting stars.
Before we depart from New Zealand, I will find another opportunity to try night photography.
We waited at the beach for the sunrise. It was breezy and fresh which made it somewhat uncomfortable. After making a few more photographs, we piled into the car and headed to breakfast with warm coffee.
