Tekapo and Pukaki

This post is the perfect example for how far behind I actually am, writing new articles.

You remember the past christmas?

This event long ago, when you ate too much? Well, that’s the time I’m referring to in this post. I already wrote about what we’ve done for christmas and new year’s eve, but now it’s time for the actual photos.

So as you may remember (or read it again -> Christmas Post) we visited the lakes “Tekapo and Pukaki”.

On lake Tekapo we tried to take some “steel wool spark shots”. For these you have to buy FINE! steel wool and an eggbeater. In theory you put the steel wool into the eggbeater and put a string on the beater. When you light the wool and start to spin the whole thing with the string in your hands, the wool produces a lot of sparks (which looks awesome in photos).

Unfortunately I bought soapy steel wool, which does not work at all. All we got were some single sparks. So I brought our portable cooker, held the wool in it as long as I could and tried it again. As you can see we didn’t get many sparks, but at least an interesting form.

On lake Pukaki, where we spent most of our time, we had perfect views on Mt Cook. To see the highest mountain of New Zealand from almost every spot around the lake, gives it a special atmosphere. Like a mighty guardian.

One evening before sunset I suggested to take a picture together in front of the mountain. Of course I wanted to have an interesting composition and soon I found the best location to stand on. A stone right in the water, in the freezing water! The only way to make Milena agree taking the photo, was to carry her to the stone.

I ended up with her on my back and tried not to fall with my flip-flops on the slippery stones.

For the final image I blended 2 exposures together. One long exposure (20 sec) to get smooth water, which looks a bit like snow is this picture. And one short exposure (1/10 sec), to keep us sharp. 1/10 sec is enough here, because of our distance to the camera and the fact that we’re standing still.

Sunset is not the only beautiful time to take photos. At Photopills (“must-have” app for taking photos) I saw, that the moon set time will be at the same time as sunrise. That meant I had to get up early and see what nature brings.

A purple sky with a full moon over the mountains was certainly not bad.

What an amazing place to spend christmas.

(In case you ever wondered; all the photos uploaded on my website and Facebook are not the original files. Most of them are around 1/3 of their original pixel count and size and have only half the details. One reason for that is the huge amount of space, such pictures would need. The other reason is the copyright, stealing small pictures with little detail makes it unprofitable – there will be a general article about the website as soon as I have some time)