Photo walk - North Head, Auckland, NZ

This weekend is my last alone at home, and although I'm looking forward to the family coming back next week I have no shame in making the most of the time to get out and shoot. 

Having not wanted to venture too far afield these past few weeks I have had to pick my destinations carefully. By that I mean places where I can spend a few hours and have a variety of things to shoot, as opposed to going to a place where there is basically one shot to get, such as a view toward the city skyline or something.

Yesterday I headed out early to Ambury Park. A lovely place, close to Auckland airport and it's suprising to find such a large amount of prime flat land in the city that remains untouched. Ambury Park has a functional farm, with sheep, cows, horses, pigs and chickens that you can get nice and close to, great for the kids. You can walk around the coastline of the Manukau Harbour too. It wasn't varied enough for my shooting - aside from shots of farm animals and a Kingfisher that I would never had spotted had it not been making a tonne of noise, there wasn't much else aside from a flat and unremarkable landscape - though very pleasant to the eye just not for photos.

The one remaining place on my list is North Head, one of Auckland's volcanic mounds. It is located at the most southeastern tip of the North Shore. Previously used as a military outpost way back, there are guns, tunnels and bunkers to explore as well as panoramic views of the city and the harbour.

Photography notes

Shooting conditions were challenging all weekend, the early mornings were bright, clear blue skies with little wind and a scorching sun. By 9am the wind would pick up and it gets overcast. Both Saturday and Sunday I had the issue of shooting around water with the sun. This morning in particular I was using -2 exposure compensation every time I was shooting over water, and constantly having to go back to 0 anytime I would turn around into shadows. Then everything would get overcast making it more difficult to exposure well, so I tried to ensure I preserved my highlights and see what I can do in post processing. A learning curve for sure as I had to make adjustments for almost every shot rather than just snapping away.

So far in my photography journey I had been having trouble using wide angle focal lengths in wide open spaces, hence my affinity for telephoto where I can select a subject and isolate them. Too often my wide images would be completely uninteresting and no amount of cropping or editing could change that. I watched a good Youtube video last night that has good tips such as ensuring you have something framing your photo wether it be an overhanging tree or the effect of shooting across someones shoulder. It's all about drawing the viewers eye in to where you want to go rather than just a brand and flat landscape. 

I took those tips on board and practiced today. The tide was low enough that I could circumvent the hill down on the rocks at the shoreline, and with the hill itself always to my right along with many trees I always had something to assist with my framing when shooting wide. I eventually made my way to the top of the hill, and just like my recent trip to Cornwall Park, I did not stay long. This is because despite having the best views, panoramic in all directions there is not much to see from a photography perspective - very little to frame the shots and you guessed it, just flat boring landscapes. 

Here are my favourite shots from this morning along with the Kingfisher I shot yesterday. Let me know how I did with the wider shots!