2022 was a year of contrasts and a reminder of the importance of photography in my life. COVID-19 took a lot of the pleasure from my day job and the sector-wide workload and staffing issues made it (and continue to make it in an escalating manner) an exercise in endurance more than anything else. Almost all the fun that kept me going and partially sane incorporated photography.
2022 saw my almost complete transition to mirrorless with my Nikon Z9 arriving on Christmas Eve 2021. Edin and I worked some long hours shooting for the global launch of the Nikkor Z 800mm f6.3. While stressful this was good stress and great fun and a learning curve for me as I have done little video work in the past. I had to wait for the official launch before I could preorder the 800 but finally ended up with the first copy into New Zealand and have really enjoyed using this lens along with the Nikkor Z 100-400mm f4.5-5.6 VR S for my bird and wildlife photography.
The volume of images to review and process to a deadline for Nikon finally forced me to confront the limitations of my aged computer gear that would not run the latest versions of MacOS or Lightroom and Photoshop. I pulled the trigger on a M1 Pro 16 inch MacBook Pro and have been delighted with it’s speed and the huge progress in editing efficiency with the AI masking available in Lightroom and Photoshop. I have also been able to explore noise management in high ISO images using DxO Pure RAW and Topaz plugins. This has opened new horizons in high ISO use.
While the learning process of the mirrorless transition has been stimulating, the biggest pleasure has been the travel I have done and the opportunities that have come from that. All our travel has been in New Zealand. Some people would consider that a limitation but in reality many people travel half way across the world to get here and it is my favourite place to be. Opportunities in 2021 were rather restricted and travelling to the South Island in November 2021 was a real stimulus to my photography and where 2022 seems to have begun for me. We had a lovely time exploring Central Otago and Fiordland, culminating in the NZ Nature Photography Summit in Te Anau. As I was speaking at the summit I needed to do some work on a presentation and reviewing my work so was quite focussed on photography.
A couple of days back at work were followed by traversing the Auckland lockdown to get out to the Poor Knights for a week of seabird research with Edin and her team.
This was a moving experience and one of the privileges of my life and will be explored in more detail in a series of blog posts when I have time to do it justice. The spectacle of Rako/Buller’s Shearwater dropping into their only breeding location in the world in the evening is truly one of the spectacles of the natural world and one that few get to experience.
The planned Subantarctic trip at the end of 2021 was derailed by COVID-19 but this enabled us to do the 800mm lens job for Nikon so nothing lost as one opportunity was replaced by another. The deposit I had paid was transferred to the Wildlife Masterclass in May and this was a blast. A long weekend devoted to wildlife photography with great opportunities was a real stimulus followed shortly after by a trip down to Christchurch, Kaikoura and Akaroa which Edin accompanied us on. She had been due to spend a few days with us but with COVID arriving in her flat in Auckland had nowhere to return home to so stayed with us longer and opened up some more bird photography opportunities.
Plenty of local opportunities getting to grips with the Nikon Z9 have let me gain some images I would otherwise never thought possible and a last minute rearranged trip including Pukorokoro/Miranda, Coromandel and Tawharanui again yielded some amazing images and the news that I was again a finalist in NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year. The awards evening for this was the night before we flew South again for the October Wildlife Masterclass.
This was followed by 2 weeks in the Catlins which was stunning with some excellent sightings and photography opportunities.
Looking back on 2022 now it looks to have been one of my most productive and developmental years photographically. This has fed me and helped endure the draining challenges of pandemic pressure medical practice and, along with my mountain bike, maintaining a work-life balance to some degree. I have achieved images that please me with some consistency and developed some techniques to expand and improve my work. My long term Birds on White project has gained a number of new images.
I have explored some Birds on Black.
More species have been added to my Pelagic Pan-blurs.
I have maintained the discipline of my weekly blog post and added in some video tutorial work learning new skills in recording and editing video.
Looking forward, I am anticipating a few more trips down South and working with Edin to develop the Wildlife Masterclass to be a more in depth dive into wildlife photography. I have a couple more projects developing in my mind and will update on these as they come to shape.
Happy New New to you all. Be safe and have fun making images.