Tuesday, April 7, 2015

Newest release, "Impressions In The Mist" by D."Bodhi" Smith


This is my newest release entitled, "Impressions in the Mist"...it is the third photo in my series from New Zealand taken during my recent travels to the south island.

This is a composition where I zoomed in on the details of the lower cascade of the Devil's Punchbowl Falls rather than try to capture the falls in their entirety (sometimes I wonder just how many natural geographic formations have the word "devil" in their names?)...this image was captured on Easter Sunday morning on my last day on the Island at Arthur's Pass, and is sort of NZ's kindly parting gift to me before I had to catch my long flight back home to California...

These falls are located just off the main pass through the mountains that connects the cities of Christchurch on the east coast with Greymouth on the west coast. The setting for Devil's Punchbowl Falls is Arthur's Pass National Park which is located in the mountains in the middle of the island. They are really quite easy to access since the short trail (called a track in NZ) is very close to the road and is a very well maintained path by the Department of Conservation (DOC). Only issue is the long climb up to the falls, as they are located uphiill from the trailhead and are reached after climbing 316 steps at higher altitude in the mountains (I was a bit winded when I arrived at the falls)

This waterfall is very majestic and impressive dropping 112 meters (350ft) from the cliffs above. I could have taken images of the entire waterfall, however, I was really fascinated instead by just the lower part of the falls for their personality as the water cascaded over numerous spire shaped rocks. A bonus in the composition was a small evergreen tree that was jutting out from the cliff closest to the observation deck, which could easily be included in the composition in many different ways using a longer zoom lens. The foggy morning and misty air also added some character and depth to this composition as well.

Btw, if you are ever on the South island of New Zealand, be sure to ALWAYS carry deet/insect repellant...do not ever think that because of the weather you will not need it. The pesky little black sand flies seem to pop up out of nowhere and seem to be everywhere unless there is wind. These little blood-suckers are persistent and if you are bitten by them, the result is an itch 100 times worse than any mosquito bite ever could wish to become. It is always good to be prepared. I kept these pests off of me the entire trip by coating exposed skin with bug-spray, especially my lower legs, right up until the last day.

On my last morning, I packed my bug-juice in my suitcase in prep for my flight home (too much liquid content for a carry-on) thinking that there was no way these bugs would be in the crisp cool mountains to bother me--WRONG! two days later, and I am still itching from only a couple bites from those little kiwi nuisances...just an f.y.i. heads-up to any future traveler to this great little island in the southern hemisphere. In fact, the black sand fly was really truly the only bad thing of any sort I have to mention about New Zealand. I am sure that the New Zealand national travel/promotional bureau wants to keep a tight lid on any sort of advertisement of the problems that these pesky little bugs have created for tourists on the island. Famous British explorer, Captain James Cook, stated that these tiny little flying insects were the fiercest creatures he had ever encountered in all of his travels!

Camera Settings: ISO-100, 155mm at f/8 for 55 seconds using one Lee Proglass 3.0ND filter to bring down the entire image 10 stops. Image was taken at 10am under foggy and misty conditions.

If you like my photographic impressions here, please check out all of my work on:
  1. Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Bodhi.Impressions
  2. Instagram - http://instagram.com/bodhismith 
  3. My website - http://www.bodhismith.com 
And especially please remember to check out the works of my two friends and fabulous photographers, Chip Morton http://500px.com/Chip_Morton and Jeff Deveau http://500px.com/JeffDeveau , who are also my associates in our workshop endeavor at http://www.californaicaptures.net .

#New #Zealand #Arthur'sPass #Waterfall #Devil'sPunchbowl #Falls #LeeFilters #Dolica #Tripods #Nikon #Nikkor #D800 #Impressionist #Expressionist #Bodhi #Smith #LE #LongExposure

I hope this message and image find you well.

Peace,
D. "Bodhi"

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