Welcome to my Landscape Photography site. 

​

Ever since I watched a New Zealand kids television programme called "Spot On" back in about 1973 featuring Pinhole Cameras I was away on a very long journey of wonderment and learning as I dabbled, experimented with and studied photography.

 

I always thought I would be a photographer when I left school - and so I was for a year or two: a commercial and wedding photographer. But I became pretty disillusioned with that as I couldn't photograph what I wanted to photograph. Quite quickly being a photographer meant my hobby and passion was becoming "work" and it started to lose it's magic.  Back then it was magic. None of this instant imagery with your picture showing on the back of your camera. You had to send the film away and wait. In the wedding photography world that was bloody scary! You had the job of capturing a very important day in the life of the young couple and if you had some gear failure you may not know about it until the processed film was back from the lab. 

​

For many years I spent hours in the darkroom developing black-and-white film and printing black-and-white prints. Ansel Adams was a huge inspiration and I got quite involved in something called 'the zone system' which is still the basis for my photography to this day. But technology is making things like the zone system more and more irrelevant. In putting together this website it became hugely obvious, looking back at pictures taken 20, or even 10 years ago, how much the quality has improved. We live in an awesome time and with available technology it almost means nothing is impossible. But it also means really high quality images are more available and easier to capture and so images flood the myriad of social media and Google platforms.

 

So this site is really just a record of the brighter moments of what I have been able to capture with my camera as I have meandered through the stunning New Zealand landscape for the last 20-30 years. And in mentioning that number it occurs to me that most, if not all, of these images are digital. The film images taken pre-1990 struggle to show the same level of quality and detail.

 

The thing I love about photography is that it gets you out and about no matter where you are and no matter what you are there for.  You can always have the camera or phone close by "just in case". Some of my favourite images are taken just because the camera was close by when I had no intention of taking photographs. Those are the magical moments (and sometimes quite panicky too!) when you just happen to be at the right place at the right time when the landscape is bathed in dramatic light and the elements line up perfectly.

 

I hope you enjoy the images as much as I have enjoyed taking them over the years.  

​

P.S. When viewing images in the 'PLACES' galleries the little 'info' icon (top left) will reveal text about the image.

 

Cheers 

 

Bussty   

​