New Zealand, South Island landscapes

Taking a brief break from my India shots (don’t worry there’s more to come…) today I’m digging back into my archives to present some New Zealand,  South Island, landscapes.   4 images in total,  well actually 2 images but each one is presented in 2 variations!

South Island, New Zealand
South Island, New Zealand

The shots were taken way back in October, 1987.   Ah,  things were different back then,  I was about 10 kilograms lighter,  had more hair, and of course, was shooting 35mm colour negative film.

I took 2 shots of this scene,  one in horizontal format and one in vertical format.   Contrast in the scene was extreme with the late afternoon sun poking through the clouds and foreground elements in deep shade.   There was no chance of achieving detail in both the sky and the foreground shadows in the one frame and so I was happy to let the shadows go to black,  perhaps it adds a touch of mystery?

Having scanned the negatives into the computer,  I processed them in Photoshop.  The original scene had very little colour in it,  just a wash of grey-blue through the sky in the horizontal shot and then some pink tones through the sky in the vertical shot taken just a few moments later when the sun poked through between the moving clouds.  I couldn’t decide whether I liked the colour or monochrome treatments best and so have included both versions of each shot.

For the tech-minded,  the shots were taken with the Pentax MEF 35mm SLR with a 28-80mm zoom lens.  Camera settings are long forgotten (no metadata recorded to the file back then!)  Off the top of my head I can’t recall exactly which film was used,  probably Kodak,  probably ISO 100,  but frankly,  I’m too lazy at the moment to dig out the negative and check.   The scan was done with the Epson V700 scanner. To see the variations on the images click on the following slideshow.

As for the slideshow presentation,  I’m using Soundslides Plus.  I’ve been using it a bit lately (see the previous entries “Faces of Haridwar 1 & 2”,  and my audiovisual “Sewing machine repair shop”) and find it works well.

4 comments to New Zealand, South Island, Landscapes.

Pat. 10 September, 2010 at 3:25 pm · Reply

Great shots – a classic NZ landscape. I prefer the colour shots.

KD 10 September, 2010 at 3:57 pm · Reply

Thanks Pat.

Chip 16 September, 2010 at 10:34 am · Reply

Wonderful captures, KD! I can’t decide which I like the most.

Carrie 19 September, 2010 at 5:21 pm · Reply

You are just so creative Kevin, I love what you did here. I am finally playing around a little with trying out some B&W on some of my photos. Nothing posted yet. Need to play around with it a lot more. I just don’t have the feel yet of knowing that something would look better in a different view. Too many projects going in too many different places to really concentrate on playing with my photography.