Alison Meier's photos with the keyword: newzealand

Rarangi Beach sits near the top of the East Coast of new Zealand's South Island. It is a stark, shingle beach, and not one that invites swimming. The day we visited, huge black clouds were looming up over the hills. You could see the rain falling heavily on the back hills in the far distance. The clouds were moving quickly towards us and boiling up over the hills as they did so.

Camera: NIKON D80 Lens: AF-S VR Zoom-Nikkor 70-300mm F4.5-5.6G IF-ED Focal length: 300 mm (equiv. 450 mm) Aperture: F5.6 Exposure time: 1/250" ISO speed rating: 400/27° Program: Aperture priority Metering Mode: Center-weighted average White Balance: Sunny Focus Mode: AF-S Image Stabilizer: On Noise Reduction: Off Flash: Flash did not fire This tree is alive with sparrows and waxeyes at this time of year. They work hard at the ripe apples, reducing then to thin, eaten out shells before they drop to the ground. This is a female, but not sure if it's house or hedge. There was quite bright back-light in this that detracted from the subject, so I selected the sparrow and apple, inverted the selection and reduced the brightness of the background. There was also quite a bit of noise as I had to shoot at ISO 400, and a de-noise was also applied to the background.

I looked out at that same tree this morning and it was swarming with wax-eyes. These fragile wee birds disappear if great, gallumping sparrows come near. The wax-eyes were my original "hope for" yesterday, but they quickly flew away when the sparrows arrived. Wax-eyes are hard to catch - they move very quickly and "flitter" their wings often when feeding, like babies. There was a bit more light today, and less noise than the sparrow image yesterday. This wee one stayed on the apple long enough for me to catch her. Notice that the apple is much more hollowed out than yesterday and there is some light shining through the skin. Creation date: 2/07/2010 12:11 Camera: NIKON D80 Focal length: 230*mm*(equiv. 345*mm) Aperture: F5.6 Exposure time: 1/400" ISO speed rating: 400/27° Program: Aperture priority Metering Mode: Center-weighted average White Balance: Manual Flash: Flash did not fire

4 images modified with SNS-HDR lite, then minor levels, curves, high pass sharpen, convert to black & white.

An arcane fact of science fiction is that Darth Vader has a little brother named Earth. Earth Vader is a pacifist, much happier tending his cabbages and onions than he is conquering distant galaxies. He is seen here on a misty morning somewhere near Martinborough, New Zealand as he sets off to tend his vegetable garden along with his faithful companion, Clogs.

Early testing of the Lensbaby.

This old house has barely a scrap of paint on it. I felt it needed a memorial of some sort and that bringing out its aged qualities would show it off best.

This old house has barely a scrap of paint on it. I felt it needed a memorial of some sort and that bringing out its aged qualities would show it off best.

We were in the Waikato, beside Lake Karapiro, which is a hydo lake. The sun was shining on the hills around, but rain-cloud was looming up behind them in the south east. The hay barn looked small and vulnerable beneath the towering, dark clouds. I like the simplicity of this image, with the few elements telling a story.

Three file image, run through HDR software, various tweaks with levels, sharpening, selective colouring and a texture overlay applied.