New Zealand South Island
Wanaka Sunset, New Zealand (Kyle Jones)
I recently took a vacation with my wife to New Zealand and Australia, including 6 days based in Wanaka (rhymes with “Monica”) on New Zealand’s South Island. I figured I’d share my experience here, where it can hopefully be useful for anyone else planning to travel to that beautiful country. This wasn’t a “photo trip”, so while I did make sure to place myself in a couple of good locations at sunrise/sunset, it wasn’t the focus of my trip. With that in mind, this isn’t really a photo guide and some of the shots included are more for documentary purposes than artistic. I have included some thoughts about conditions that might be good for some of these locations and am including the equipment and settings I used for reference. I’m splitting this guide into three parts, the first covering some general thoughts, gear, and the area around Wanaka. Next is the Haast Highway and Lake Matheson and then the area South of Wanaka including Queenstown and Milford Sound.Continue reading
Favorites from 2017
As with everything at year end, it is time for yet another top 10 list. In addition to your 10 favorite movies, albums, TV shows, sweaters, selfie apps, etc., here is the official list of my 10 favorite photographs I created in 2017. Trust nobody else, this is the definitive list! These may not necessarily be my best photographs, since best is always debatable and I want the list to include a sampling from throughout the year. Selecting images was especially challenging this year as I had a chance to visit some really special locations including Banff in the winter, Iceland, Yosemite, Grand Teton, Zion, Yellowstone and even beautiful Corvallis, Oregon for the total solar eclipse. I could have selected 10 shots that I really liked from a 12-hour period in Stokksnes and Jökulsárlón, Iceland and called that a good year. In the end I cheated and created a runner-up list you can check out here. Without further ado, and in the order taken, here are my favorites from 2017:Continue reading
2017 Favorites – Honorable Mentions
I sat down at my computer last week and went about my annual process of selecting my ten favorite photographs I made this year. I always enjoy this and usually find it interesting. There are always some photos that I loved when I took them, often because of fond memories of the experience, that seem less spectacular overt time. There are others that just stick with me. There are photos that others really like that I’m not as enamored with, and some that I think are really cool that didn’t get much of a reaction from my friends. So I mix all that together and create a short list of my favorite photos and then work to cull that list down to ten.
This year was especially challenging and getting down to ten favorites forced me to cast asides some pictures that I really like! Next week I’ll share my favorites, along with some background information on each of them and why it was included. In the meantime, here are the honorable mentions (in no particular order).Continue reading
Shooting the Stars
Tunnel View Stars – Yosemite National Park, California (Kyle Jones)
I truly enjoy making photographs at night. If I’m willing to give up some sleep and risk some cold, I have the opportunity to photograph some beautiful locations in relative solitude. It always amazes me how much detail modern cameras can pull out of a night sky. So with that in mind, here are some of my favorite night images from the last year.Continue reading