Leaving Christchurch, I moved on to my next location... it was quite a drive (over 3.5 hours) since the roads are a bit different to Germany :) I'm very glad i took the option to stay in Christchurch on the first night to get some rest... would have been crazy to attempt this directly from the airport (at night)... my goal was to reach Hampden on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand...
I arrived around the time for sunset but there wasn't much sun to be seen as the heavens opened as I got to my motel... I did take a quick trip to the beach to make sure i knew where everything was in the morning as this location would be an early start for sunrise... following advice from the motel owner, I went to the Moeraki Tavern for dinner which was an excellent suggestion but just make sure you're not too late as things close early in these small towns... more on that later in the trip
I'd love to tell you I planned my visit to this area in minute detail... consulting long term weather forecasts and tide tables but in all honesty, I got lucky... I only had one night / morning in the area (could have maybe squeezed another) and the tide was coming in at a perfect time for sunrise... so the alarm was set with hope that the rain would clear overnight
Let me tell you that 5am is one of my least favourite alarm times but looking out the window made it worthwhile as the rain was gone and enough clouds to be interesting... so I grabbed a quick coffee, a snack, my headlamp and headed to the beach... I was the only car in the carpark... this was surprising as Moeraki Boulders is one of the most popular photo locations in New Zealand but I wasn't complaining... I walked about 10 minutes up the beach to the main boulder area and actually took my first shot about 5:55am... I had to wait about twenty minutes for the light to improve and BOY... did it improve!!!! Over the next hour and a half, the light just got better and better... the sort of morning you dream of as a landscape photographer and I had the beach basically to myself... one other photographer turned up about 6:30am and a third around 7am... this gave me to the freedom to fine tune compositions and get some long exposures without getting in anyones way... the only problem was the incoming tide which was giving me wet feet but that was a small price to pay... also had to remember to keep my bag on my back so it didn't get drenched as well... below is a gallery of images from the morning... just click for the next image...
Warning.... techie speak coming... to be able to smooth water and balance the sky, I needed to use Neutral Density filters... I have a set from NISI Filters... I used a solid 6stop to get the longer exposure times and a 3 stop Reverse Grad ND for the sky (otherwise the boulders would be too dark)... I can combine these in my custom holder for my Fisheye lens or in the NISI S5 150mm Holder on my other lenses.... if you want more details, just comment below or send me a mail... Here endeth the techie speak :)
This post is already a bit long so I'll talk about the travel to Queenstown in the next post