Flying Into Wellington

I counted my photos today and all together I took over 27,000! I agree with you, that is was too many! However, that number includes multiple images of the same subject as well as experiments with exposure settings. In truth, most of the images I took will only be viewed by my eyes because I took them to remember the moment: instead of writing everything down, I take photos of it all... perhaps too many, but I'd rather have more than less photographs.

You First... retake

Wow, it has been awhile since my last post, 23 days to be exact. My bad. Since then, I explored the Auckland CBD many times while searching for souvenirs and saying goodbye to my favorite spots, my American friends headed off to travel or to go back to the states, I traveled all the way to Cape Reinga and back to Auckland, my parents came and I packed up and moved out of my apartment, I hung out with my kiwi friends for the last time (not really though, we'll see each other again), then I traveled around New Zealand with my parents for two weeks, and I arrived back in the states (last night). Many more things went down, but I'll share more details with you as I search through my photographs post them.

If you cannot tell, this photograph was taken at the same spot my last posted photograph was taken... just a few months after and with a tad bit different weather. I insisted my parents take the drive from Queenstown up the west coast (eventually ending in Hokitika) because it is absolutely spectacular. Yet, the weather wasn't quite as good this time around. However, even with clouds smothering the area with their chilling grasp, it was still a gorgeous winding ride full of the famous ferns that cover New Zealand and many dramatic waterfalls that one's eye could follow all the way from the snow on top to the forest below.

I apologize for the extended break in posting, but traveling in New Zealand means lack of internet. On the good side though, I added many more photographs to my collection, so even though I'm back in the states, you will still get photos from New Zealand. Expect regular updating from now on.

Hard to Resist

I was feeling a bit nostalgic last night while looking for an image to post today, so I peaked back into my orientation folder (we spent time the first 3 days overcoming jet lag and shock in Shakespear Regional Park). It's hard to believe that my semester at the University of Auckland will be complete in 2 exams and 4 days, and I'll be departing the land of the long white cloud in 27 days. This is when I ask myself, "wtf?" Where did all of the time go? I loved glancing at a few of the photos from the first days in New Zealand because I remember taking them and being so overwhelmed about standing on land all the way around the world (on the edge of the world as I've learned New Zealanders view it) with completely new people and knowing I was going to be here for what seemed like an extremely long time. Now I'm sitting here wondering, what the hell was I thinking? 5 months is an extremely minuscule amount of time. Thinking about everything that I still want to do is making it harder and harder to get myself into the land of hardcovers and silence (aka the library). I never actually knew what studying was until I came to AU and met some kiwis, they motivated me for a bit when classes got out, but I'm quickly losing steam; the 21 year-old American in me is saying, "who cares about studying when spring is upon us?" (Is this perhaps why we're called "lazy Americans"?) In addition, this video is highly distracting: They Just Turned Life Into A Musical

Drama

Here is another image from Mt. Ruapehu. This was when the clouds started rolling in late in the afternoon. As you can see, the clouds added contrast to the perfectly blue sky. A friend and I are planning on walking around the city to do some night photography tonight, so lets hope the weather holds off so that I can add some variety to this photoblog.

For some favorite photo series of mine click some of these links:
Greenville Daily Photo
Auckland Daily Photo
Henry Chen
Brent Stirton
Taylor James
No H8
Lens - NY Times

Also, remember that stop motion video I posted a while ago. Well, look at what amazing stop motion looks like: Fantastic Mr. Fox