Sunset at Lake Tekapo

Lake Tekapo is one of the most extraordinary things I have seen in my life. A lake of the most odd blue color, and then a painterly sky like this.Jacob Surlandwww.caughtinpixels.comArt sale as limited prints. Photo by Jacob Surland, Licensed Creative Commons non-commercial v4.0. No Derivative Work. Protected by Pixsy.com.

Lake Tekapo is one of the most surreal lakes I have ever seen, due the color of the water.

Lake Tekapo is one of the most extraordinary things I have seen in my life. We drove around New Zealand in a campervan for a month. While a month seems like a long time, it really isn’t enough to do New Zealand proper justice. We skipped a large part of the Northern Island, not because we didn’t want to see it, but simply because time didn’t allow it.

Our last night in our campervan we had with a view of Lake Tekapo. And we sure did have a great day there. We drank the world famous in New Zealand soft drink L&P had our favorite sandwiches with Watties Ketchup for lunch, while we sat in the back of our campervan and enjoyed the view of Lake Tekapo.

At sunset time, we were rewarded with the most amazing sunset, with surreal painterly like clouds. A sunset worthy of New Zealand.

This is another one from Lake Tekapo – notice the surreal color of the lake:

Church of the Good Shephard

The Church of the Good Shepard watching over Lake Tekapo.

These are some of my other shots from New Zealand.

Morning Glow in Milford Sound

Milford Sound – so beautiful the gods placed the Sand flies there, so that mankind would not stay there for too long.

On The Road Again

Driving towards Lake Tekapo.

A Moeraki Boulder

A Moeraki Boulder

On a beach on the South Island of New Zealand they have these really odd completely round boulders. The are pretty large, about 1 meter in diameter and nobody knows how they were created – one of natures small wonders, like the crawling stones in Death Valley.

About this photo

This is a 9 shot HDR. As you can see the sun is still very very bright. If I had wanted the sun to be less burned, I would have had to use an Neutral Density filter (ND-filter). An ND filter is like sunglasses for the lens. I actually did use an ND filter on the same beach, to take some shots of the moving water behind me. That slowed down my shutter speed to a few seconds making wonderful stuff to the waves.

About the composition

What I did with the composition was to merge in the Moeraki Boulder into the edge of the sand cliff, but made sure not to place it above the trees, so it merges into the edge between the sand cliff and the trees on the top of the sand cliff. That gives three repeating shapes, that looks a bit like three waves.

About the processing

I have spend a lot of time making this photo. My aim was to get something that looked Classic HDR, and I wanted a strong shadow cast by the boulder. I have used the edges of the shadow as lead in lines. The reflection in the water I made sure was bright to make a bold reflection. And the last thing I did was a lot of clean up. I have really realized how much cleaning up my photo affects the impact of the photo. I decided to clean up small rocks, leaves etc and it really became a much better photo. One of the things you have to keep in mind, when you take photos, is to keep it simple. To many things in your photo, will just confuse the viewer and it will be like noise for the viewer. Rubble, stones, leaves etc creates a noise too, so either clean up the scene before taking it or do it in Photoshop later. Try at least cleaning up in the foreground of your photo, and be amazed how it affects the impact of your photo.

Peaceful Sunrise At Milford Sound

Peaceful Sunrise At Milford Sound

One of the most beautiful and dramatic fiords lies on the the west coast of New Zealands South Island. The sun rises and shines on Mitre Peak, which rises an amazing almost 1700 m straight out of the water, which I was told was the record. The weather changes a lot in Milford Sound and seeing it without a cloud is a rare experience. It rains up to 11 meters (!) per year here, which is makes this place one of the places on Earth where it rains most.

About the processing
This is 7 shot HDR photo merged together using Photomatix. I have worked a lot with the image. Created a new layer, fine tuned an area, and then blended that area into the main photo, then made another duplicated layer to optimize another area. I have used Topaz Adjust and Nik Color Efex filters with delicacy.

Cleaning up the photo
I have done a lot of cleaning up in the photo. There was a lot of dirt, leaves, insects etc in the water. This I have removed using the clone tool in Photoshop. It took some time, but it’s important to achieve the calm mood of the photo and the strong clear reflection.

On The Road Again

On The Road Again

Our last real drive after a month in New Zealand went from Oamaru to Lake Tekapo. This is from the road to Twizel and suddenly we saw these amazing clouds. I have never seen clouds like that in Denmark. We saw them a couple of times down there.

This photo is 95% Lightroom processed. I have placed a gradient on the sky, enhancing the contrast and clarity, as well as bringen the exposure down a bit down.

Then I have on a global basis turned up the contrast to maximum, and set the clarity to +29. Shadows I have raised to the maximum, and the highlights I have lowered to the minimum. The Curves I have on the minus side (-13, -9, -22 and -44).

This is a very strong manipulation, but it is what gives the photo its look and feel.

Sunrise in the Doubtful Sound

Sunrise in the Doubtful Sound

Doubtful Sound, South Island, New Zealand – bigger and much much more desolate than Milford Sound. Less dramatic though, but very very beautiful.

This is first edited in Lightroom, then exported to Photoshop, where I did a Topaz Filter and then some more adjustmens, a little noise reduction, and then back to Lightroom for the final adjustments.

EXIF: 28mm (28-300mm lens), ISO 400, f/3.5, 1/125 sec.
I used ISO 400 to keep the shutter speed fast, because is was on a moving boat and tripods was not possible. Therefore also f/3.5, which is to high normally for landscapes.

Lake Wakatipu in the Morning

After two nights in gorgeous Queenstown in New Zealand, we continued on our way. It was a clear blue and a little cold morning in November 2012. Just at the out skirts of Queenstown we pulled over the campervan and I shot a few shots, including this one.

It is a 5 shot HDR photo shot with my 28-300mm lens at 28mm. Processing wise this is fairly standard processing, first processed in Photomatix and then I blended layers in Photoshop CS6. Only the spiky grass thingie in the lower right hand corner have received a very special treatment. It’s in the shade and turned out too dark, so I had to ‘lighten it up’.

EXIF: 28mm, ISO 200, f/8.0, 1/50 sec.
Why? At a wide angle as 28mm you can get almost anything sharp, but not what’s absolutely closest. It is shot hand held, so I had to use a fast shutter speed on all 5 shots. By using ISO 200 instead of ISO 100 I made the shutter speed twice as fast. I didn’t dare to go higher on the f-stop (that is a lower number – remember, that they work counter intuitive), because the foreground had to be sharp too. Most of my shots in this spot failed, because the foreground was not sharp enough. I should have used a tripod and lowered the f-stop to perhaps f/16.

Gold on the beach

South Island on New Zealand has got these wonderful golden beaches up north on Tasman Bay. We took a water taxi, but because of the tide, we were dumped in the water and had to walk the rest of the 500m to the beach. It was mid thigh deep. I was quite worried about my photo equipment.

About the photo. This is a hand held 5 shot HDR photo. It lacks a bit sharpness in the front. A disadvantage of taking the shots hand held is that, you can’t always get all of the details right. However I do like the photo, composition and the clouds. Processing wise, this is a combination of a single and double tonemapped image that I blended in Photoshop. See my HDR tutorial if you want to know how to do that.

Lake Matheson in New Zealand

Lake Matheson in New Zealand

Get up before sunrise and walk around Lake Matheson at sunset. See Mount Cook mirrored in the lake“. Said the guide book. “Yessir!” I thought, and I wasn’t disappointed. When we got up and drove the few miles to Lake Matheson it was pitch dark. We almost hit a japanese guy running in black clothes with backpack on his back. We arrived at the view point at Lake Matheson exactly at sunrise. Within five minutes the japanese guy turned up too, and he too had a camera. We ended up being a small group taking photos of this beautiful morning. This particular photo is taken about 30 minutes after sunrise. I had expected a golden sunrise, but of cause the mountains give shade a long time. The golden light came later.

This photo is the photo that I have used in detailed HDR tutorial you can find here.

Pink Clouds over Lake Tekapo


Lake Tekapo in New Zealand can be very windy, which was the case this evening. The day after the surface of the lake was like glass. On the left lies Mount John covered in trees. On the the top there is an observatory and a cafe. The cafe makes really good coffee and the cakes are worth the strain to get to the top of the mountain, just as the view is very rewarding.

This is a 5 shot HDR. I tone mapped it in Photomatix and then I blended the five original shots into the tone mapped image, by using Photoshop. There is no part I have blended in 100%. The sky is blended in various degrees with the 0 and minus 1 exposure. The same goes with the rocks. The trees on the left is more or less the clean tone mapped version. In the end I used a Topaz adjust filter to add a little warmth and sharpness to the photo. This step I could have done by using adjustment layers, and Unsharp Mask in Photoshop as well.

Finally I took it into Light room and did a few adjustments. The right hand side of the trees was too dark. I added a little light by using the brush tool, and then I added little contrast global contrast.

Morning Glow in Milford Sound

Morning Glow in Milford SoundThe sand flies in Milford sound is pure Hell. The Maori’s said that their god created Milford Sound, and to prevent people for staying forever in such a beauty, he created the sand flies.
I took a bath in a repellent spray, but when I got home to my camper van a couple of hours later, I had this huge bump right on my forehead. Good thing, though, it only itches like hell for a week or so.
Milford Sound is one of the most photographed tourist attractions in New Zealand and it is understandable why. It’s massive size and beauty is amazing. Mitre Peak rises 1692m straight out of the water. Your sense of proportions really is working on overtime.
This is an HDR of 5 shots. ISO is 100, at F11 and 1,3 seconds for the 0 exposure.