This weekend I enjoyed my annual contribution to the New Zealand Aria. This was my sixth year covering the Aria and it was, again, a real privilege to enjoy the amazing music while making images to record the New Zealand Aria 2014. It’s a long day, starting with the Maori song contest at the Tangatarua Marae on the Waiariki Institute of Technology campus at 09h00. A quick dash home for lunch gives me enough time for a quick edit before heading into the newly named Sir Howard Morrison Performing Arts Centre for the finalist’s rehearsals with the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. Another short spell at home and then back in to photograph the performance before downloading photos before bed. The next day is consumed by editing and uploading photos to my website and ends with this blog post.

The Quality of the performances was fantastic as usual, but this year seemed to have a very uniform high standard and I didn’t envy the judges having to make a decision. They obviously found it difficult too as they awarded 2 Highly Commended awards in addition to places First to Fourth. In previous years it has been a simple First to Third.

Isabella Moore took top place with an powerful performance of Verdi’s Ernani, Ernani, involami Ernani. Madison Nonoa took second and Benson Wilson was third. Jarvis Dams took the newly created fourth place while Emily Scott and Chelsea Dolman were highly commended on their performances. See my NZAria 2014 Gallery for all the photos

From a technical perspective, all the images are made with a Nikon 70-200 f2.8 as light levels, especially at the Marae, are challenging. I have previously used Nikon D700 and D3s bodies for their great high ISO performance but this year used the new Nikon D810 due the amazingly quiet shutter sound. Exposures at the Marae were 1/320s with ISO 3200 and the images processed up as clean as D3s files when downsized to the equivalent pixel dimensions. The main theatre is less challenging as there is more light giving 1/250s at ISO 800. At the Marae I work handheld as you need to move position to get a decent background depending on where the singer stands so the VR is helpful. In the theatre the singers have a mark and are well lit so I can work from a tripod which saves my back and shoulders a bit.