Page 21 - Cape-Camera-May-June-2025

Cape Camera May-June 2025

After Mount Cook we returned to
Twizel, to further explore smallish
lakes, which were ringed with trees
on fire with autumn colours. We came
across a group of photographers, per-
haps part of a club, on an outing.
After a bite to eat and some tea we
set off for Fairlie — our destination
for the night. We think we finally
caught a glimpse of the tip of Mount
Cook poking through the clouds
some 70 km away.
Wednesday April 16. Fairlie, our
last overnight stop before Christch-
urch, calls itself the home of the New
Above: Brian and Jono. Zealand meat pie. Who would have
Left: The blue water of the Hoktika guessed?
Gorge.
We have had a wonderful time. The
weather, by local standards, could

New Zealand cont. We could sense, rather than see, the not have been better. South Island
huge mountains looming above is beautiful beyond description and
from p20 us. Every now and then we caught as a landscape photographer my
keep ahead of it as much as possible. glimpses of black jagged snow- cup was full.
Lake Hawea was crying out for some flecked shards of hard mountain Much of what was on my would still
more photographs before we left. rock through the clouds. like to shoot list had been ticked off.
It had begun raining by the time we Jono walked down to the lake, Fjords, waterfalls, glaciers, misty
reached the drive alongside Lake which had numerous icebergs dot- forests, snow- flecked mountains,
Pukaki to Mount Cook. The lake ted on its surface. From the hill they autumn trees, blue rivers. I will be
is an intense blue, due to very fine looked like confetti — from close up post-processing my photographs
glacial rock dust held in suspension, they were bigger than buses. for months to come.
which absorbs certain light wave-
lengths. I took some very atmos-
pheric photos, but we could not see In retrospect: some tips for travellers
Mount Cook itself. The South Island of New Zealand is packed with potential for land-
We retraced our tracks to our over- scape photography and what we saw covered only a fraction of what
night destination outside Twizel on the island offers.
Lake Ruatiniwha. After we arrived In order to keep the weight of my carry-on bag under 7kg’s I severely
I Googled best locations on South curtailed my selection of camera gear. I ended up taking one camera — a
Island for autumn landscape photog- Nikon Z5 — a 24-70mm f4 Nikon lens and a 70-210mm f4 Tamron lens.
raphy and found Lake Ruatiniwha at Perhaps, next time, I will take a 24-200mm travel lens instead. My tripod
the very top of the list. Jono went for went into checked-in luggage.
a run and I once again did my nut
with my camera. Trees in all their The weather on South Island can be capricious and I am very grateful for
autumn glory reflected in a mirror the many photography-friendly days we experienced. Being constantly
smooth lake. on the move one has to take what one gets regarding the weather and
the light. For instance, it was a rare bright sunny day at Milford Sound,
Tuesday 15 April. After breakfast not the best condition for moody compositions. Both adjacent days were
the clouds slowly began to lift and predicted to have heavy rain.
we decided to go back up the edge
of Lake Pukaki to try once more to We travelled out-of-season, which resulted in less dense crowds, how-
catch a glimpse of Mount Cook. At ever, iconic locations were still busy.
the far end of the lake we took the The west coast of the island is wetter and receives the bad weather first
Tasman valley turn-off and at the — but that is where the mountains are to be found.
end of that road hiked a short dis- I personally would return to the South Island in April when the trees
tance up a steep hill to a viewpoint change colour. It is, however, the shoulder season before the rainfall in-
which looked across the glacial lake crease for winter and so the risk of experiencing an extended period of
to the foot of the Tasman glacier and wet weather cannot be completely avoided.
beyond.

Cape Town Photographic Society 21