Nature Photography
As well as child fine at portraiture, I also love taking photos of nature especially when on holiday with my children.
Photos on camping trips and picnics
As a family we often go camping or going on holiday at Kaikoura. Give me the simple life every time and I’ll choose it. Here are some of my nature artworks and the stories behind them.
Carrot flower
My first artwork is a wild carrot flower. These are everywhere up at Kaikoura. They grow by the ocean and on the Kaikoura peninsula. This particular flower I saw on a walk with my husband. It took about 15 minutes to get the perfect shot of this flower head. It was the most perfect flower head I have ever seen in my whole entire life. I was gasping with the perfectness of it! The symmetry was perfect. The whole flower head was white right across. It was like a beautiful snowflake. The background was also perfect. I experimented with many depths of field until I came up with one that gave a creamy background but still had the flower head in focus. I think it was about F4 on my 35mm Fujifilm lens.
My husband moaned that we were meant to be on a walk not taking photos. That was pretty normal for him. He puts up with a lot though.
Hanmer Bark
The second artwork is tree bark at Hanmer Springs. Each trunk has four different barks represented. There are five in total with the fifth one offset with a white gap in between. Initially I was going to do all the trunks evenly spaced but as I was working in photo shop I noticed that having one sit out from the others gave a nice graphic look.
These photos were taken on a trip to Hanmer Springs with my family. We walked through the forested areas and took our time stopping to look at the different barks and I took photos as I went. By the end of the walk my family was starting to get a little annoyed with me stopping and starting all the time. But I think you’ll agree that the final artwork is pretty spectacular.
Frozen Daisy
The next art work is of a frozen daisy which is usually found on lawns. I did a photography trip out to Kairaki near Kaiapoi. Initially I was going to take photos of landscapes and some trees. I started to take photos though of the frozen plants as it was a terrible frost there that day. My sister was also with me and she focused on the landscapes.
I ended up on a lawn taking this daisy photo. This artwork can actually be blown up quite big even though it’s a very tiny daisy. I wish I had had the Fujifilm GFX to take this photo as I would’ve had a beautiful high resolution. This was one of the most popular photos I had at my exhibition in 2018. It was the second piece to sell and many people were interested in it.
Created fern
My next piece is my created fern. I created this from from two photos taken at Mount Thomas in 2018. The ferns up at Mount Thomas are beautiful and lush. It really makes my heart soar when I see beautiful native plants like this. Nature is imperfect. The photos I took were full of branches and sticks and other pieces of vegetation. I decided to create this fern to give a more graphic look and I had comments from people saying it looks like a ballerina or that it had its own personality.
It was a very popular piece at my exhibition and people thought it had a 3-D look to it.
Zen pool
My next art work is my Zen pool. This was taken on a family trip to Motunau. We went along the beach for a long long way. I have never been to this part of Motunau before and there were very high cliffs behind us blocking the sun. The small pools like this one were very beautiful. When I go back to this location I will take a lot more of these photos as they were very popular and very relaxing. We had a picnic that day on the beach in a tiny piece of sun that was spilling over the top of the cliff. My Mum and Dad were there as well as my sister, husband and three kids.
Graphic daisies
My next art work to discuss is my daisies. I love the graphic nature of the daisies and the circle that goes between them. One day I think I may actually hang this in my own house.
Taking the photos of the individual daisies took a long time. I had way more daisies than I’ve shown here in the final artwork. Often you have to take at least 100 photos to get 25 you like. These were on the lawn in the Mount Thomas picnic area. That day I also took the photos for my created fern. It was a beautiful sunny day and we had a picnic by the stream there. So nice!
Skeleton Leaf
My next at work to discuss is my skeleton leaf leaf. This is actually a close-up of a skeleton leaf taken with my Fujifilm 35 mm F 1.4 lens. I sellotaped the leaf to the window and took the photo through the window on a sunny day.
The sun wasn’t hitting the leaf directly as it was blocked by the eaves of my house. However, the leaf had enough light to give a beautiful white line on each tiny little vein. I then change the image to black-and-white to get a very striking look. I have many more of these leaves to take photos of and want to do a series very soon. They are extremely popular for artworks to hang on walls as they are very striking.
Seaweed and sponge
My final artwork to discuss is my four pieces of seaweed and sponge. Our family has a bach up at Kaikoura. We are always on the beach there. One Christmas we decided to go up to Okiwi Bay. I had heard from the locals that this Bay had turned into a beautiful sandy beach after the Kaikoura earthquake of 2016. We arrived at the beach to find beautiful sand, lots of people and just a lovely sunshine above us.
We had a picnic on the beach and then went exploring. I saw these perfectly laid out pieces of seaweed plus a sponge. They were lying on the perfect sand. I took a photo of each one with the idea of creating an art work and this is what I created. I tried three in a row but it was the square with four that I liked best.
This picture now is now on the wall at our bach at Kaikoura. It is one of my favourite pieces. It represents the changing landscape of Kaikoura after the earthquake. Also this sandy beach is no longer there – it has gone back to stoney again.
It also goes so well with our house which has a sea theme right throughout. My grandma uses this room when she stays on holiday at our bach. She said she loves the art work in this room which includes this picture and also the round carrot flower.
So there you go a few of my pictures. It’s amazing what stories are behind them.