Share your favourite scenic pictures of New Zealand and be in to win

Great! There is a photography competition in New Zealand posted on NZHerald, but what is the catch for photographers? You need to either be a New Zealand resident or citizen in order to participate in it. At least that is the first criteria that I noticed before reading the rest of the terms and conditions. If anyone is more interested to read on their terms and conditions, the link is attached here (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/promotions/news/article.cfm?c_id=500848&objectid=10653870).

Hold on!!! I just noticed the second bullet of the terms and conditions. As a photographer, you own the copyrights of your work but the promoter has the rights to freely use your work in its online and print publications? It means that if I submitted my work for this competition, I am giving the promoter the publishing rights to the submitted photograph. Even if I am not selected to be the winner or runners-up to get any of the prizes, I might still see my photograph used in their advertisements for free.

Driving in Fog

Driving in and through the fog is a common task for every motorists in New Zealand, especially during the winter season. Well, this is probably the main reason why I have slowed down my blogging. Getting a good photo in a foggy landscape when you can hardly see a distance away is challenging. At least it is very challenging for me to create any artistic or interesting topic for my readers.

Merging Portrait and Landscape

Let’s just say that you found very beautiful scenery and you decided to take a photograph of it. How many of us have found that our scenery shot is plain and flat? Well, most of us did. Allow me to demonstrate it to you with the photograph above, taken yesterday under the usual New Zealand’s "Rain, rain, go away" scenario of extreme winter weather in Auckland region.

What do you think of the photograph above? That’s the Orewa beach in New Zealand. It is a very magnificent beach view from the hill, but the photograph turns out to flat and boring. How can we improve a landscape photograph? Well, by merging both the portrait and landscape photography technique in having a subject within the frame can creates a much depth full photograph. And this is what happens when you have a subject within a landscape photograph below.

Praying Mantis Model

 

Oh guys, if you have been following my blog, you should discovered that this is my second praying mantis blog post. Some may ask on why I do a second praying mantis blog post again. The reason is simple. This wild praying mantis came back to me for a second photo shooting session and what do all good photographers out there would usually do? We will never say no to a keen model.

Bugger off, bug

I was strolling in the forest until I actually discovered the skin of this insect. Interesting though, I have spent about a month to research about the insect using the photo taken. Of course, the bug has bugger off into something different after abandoning its skin and there isn’t any insect image database out there to provide an easier identification of the insect.