Chris Hill Photographer

Snow Snow Snow

2011-08-14T23:01:00.000-07:00

Today we had a polar blast, this meant that there was snow to lower levels than I have ever seen here in Taranaki. A great opportunity to get out and record some snow scenes with only a 10min drive.

I am a great believer in having locations scouted in advance, so when something like this happens you do not have to drive around aimlessly. I had photographed some trees down this road before so I headed out and came across this old shed.

To me this old farm shed sums up Taranaki.

Commercial and Advertising win (again)

2011-08-11T16:00:00.000-07:00

After attending the NZIPP (NZ Institute of Professional Photographers) Iris awards in Rotorua on monday night I was blown away to be announced as the Commercial & Advertising photographer of the year. This is the second year running that I have won this award.

This is the first year I have been able to be present at the Gala dinner, and what an evening, good food, company and plenty of great imagery to feed the eyes.

All of my 8 entries scored a bronze award and above, this is the first time all of my images gained award standard. I was also presented with a bar to my Masters qualification.

My commercial winning images are shown bellow.

Showplace Refurbishment

2011-06-26T15:42:00.000-07:00

Our local opera house, the TSB Showplace, has undergone a repaint inside. An assignment from the architects had me shooting the new paint job during the interval of the Ten Tenors show.

This was challenging as I had to be in and out during the interval so I had 20 minutes to get in and get all the shots and get out again, while being watched by 1,000 concert goers.

The architects wanted to have the theater full of people to capture its ambiance.

The image below is one of my favorites, it is a stitch of three vertical images, so the original is large enough that you can zoom in and identify individual people.

Feel the power

2011-06-13T22:45:00.000-07:00

No posts for a while, so it is about time for an update. I have been busy preparing entries for the Australian Professional Awards, they are away and are now in the hands of the judges.

A job that I did a week ago was to photograph maintenance workers for Tenix, an electrical lines company, working in an electrical sub-station.

This year I bought an Orbis ring flash an this job was an excellent opportunity to use it. I love the quality of light that the Orbis produces. During the shoot I used a flash on the Orbis to light the workers and two other flashes bounced off the ceiling to light the room.

In this image below I only used the ambient light and Orbis for fill light.

Gold

2011-02-02T15:26:00.000-08:00

Iv'e just returned from Waihi the region that produces gold and silver in the North Island of New Zealand. There are two active mines in the region the Favona underground mine and the Martha open cast mine ( a huge hole in the ground). Martha mine below

As well as visiting these mines we also walked through the conservation area in the Karangahake Gorge where historical mining took place. The highlight of the walks was the window walk, a walk through mining tunnels that have portals to the gorge. Very spectacular.

Below are images from the window walk.

Perfect Storm

2010-12-28T21:01:00.000-08:00

Yesterday a front passed over the country, disrupting our summer weather. Here in Taranaki it brought high seas, wind and rain, a great opportunity to grab the camera and get out in it.

I headed out to the coast and checked out the storm surf hitting the coast. Photos below.

And they call it work!!

2010-12-15T18:54:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I had to spend an afternoon out on the golf course, my job was to follow Tiger Woods caddy Steve Williams around and photograph him talking to junior golfers during their practice round.

Steve sponsors the tournament for junior golfers run by Taranaki Junior golf. He turned up for the opening of the tournament and casually strolled the course chatting to golfers and watching their shots (no pressure).

My job was to follow and keep an eye on him for those photo opportunities, I had to be on the ball as as soon as I took my eye off him he was shaking hands with someone. It was just another day at the office for me, thats why I love what I do.

Here are some shots from the afternoon.

A day at the Museum

2010-12-12T21:15:00.000-08:00

Today I have been photographing at our museum, I have too photograph blank walls (I kid you not) before an exhibition is hung. Once the work is in place then I have to go back and photograph the work in place.

One thing about museums that I like is that they are dark moody places with a lot of feature lighting, these make some challenging but colourful imagery possible. Below are two shots that I took while I was there, outside the brief (you really don't want to see a blank wall).

Queenstown 2

2010-10-16T03:16:00.000-07:00

As I have had some time I have been working on photos taken while I was in Queenstown. This photo is made up of 12 separate exposures.
Not only was the weather great but the light was magic.

Queenstown Awards

2010-10-06T20:41:00.000-07:00

At the start of this month I attended the NZIPP (New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers) Iris Awards. A special time for me as I was awarded New Zealand Commercial & Advertising Photographer of the year. To see my award winning images click here.

The award judging took place over 3 days at the Millennium hotel in Queenstown, a beautiful and scenic part of New Zealand. It was almost criminal to have the top photographers in the country inside looking at photographs in such a scenic place.

I did, however, make some time in the evening to capture some of the landscape.

Winter at the beach

2010-08-19T21:12:00.000-07:00

I have been spending some time at the beach lately. I find the light in winter quite magical, especially at dusk, combining this light with slow shutter speeds creates lots of mood.

Here are some shots that I took, both at the same location but on different evenings. I enjoy photographing a location over many visits, it allows you to understands its different moods.

Pinhole experiments

2010-06-22T20:34:00.000-07:00

I have been playing with a pinhole camera made out of a match box, I think it is cool the images that can be made with nothing more than a matchbox, hole and film.

Here is a photo of the actual camera.

One of the best shots is shown bellow.

Here is a photo that I took of a night class that I have been teaching, I told them that I would post the image here so that they could see it.

Awards

2010-06-21T18:13:00.000-07:00

This year I entered four prints into the APPA (Australian Professional Photography Awards) and gained two silver awards. This is only the second year of entering and is one silver better than last years awards.

The awards are important to me as it ensures that I am always trying to improve my technique and vision which results in better work produced for my clients and means that I am at the cutting edge of my craft.

The two images were architectural shots taken for clients and can be seen below.

Portraits

2010-06-07T19:31:00.000-07:00

The other week I had to pick up some stuff from a furniture maker, when I saw the way he worked I thought "I've got to get a photograph of this". So a week later I approached him and asked if I could do a portrait shot of him.

He builds hand crafted furniture from a workshop started by his father, he ill be the last one to own it and in this day of mass-produced furniture it is an up hill battle to stay ahead. As places like this are disappearing it is important to record them.

Here are two images from the shoot.

New Toy

2010-04-08T18:54:00.000-07:00

So much for regular updates, Yesterday I bought a timer remote for my camera and so I have been playing with Time-lapse video. While I have not yet mastered it I have been having fun learning.

The first project was shooting the mountain, I left my camera at a friends place quietly shooting away. When i returned (3 hours later) the camera was having a siesta. It was unable to focus as the setting sun was causing a lack of definition on the mountain. I put my camera on manual focus (where it should have been from the beginning) and carried on. Subsequently I have a jump in the video.

I also used the tripod centre post (to eliminate some plants) and the wind must have moved the camera slightly. Lessons learnt: Manual focus and no centre post.

Here is the video.

I then set up to shoot some short video in town, I put a new battery in the camera only to have it die after 55 shots. Lesson: make sure the camera has a fully charged battery.

So the very short video below (don't blink)

Wellington

2010-01-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

I'm back from Wellington, generally the weather was pretty bad, but I did manage to get work done in reasonable weather. I enjoyed shooting buildings down there, but shooting out of town does have its challenges. One of those is not being able to wait for good weather, you have to do the shoot in the time available.

Here is an image from the shoot I did down there.

First project for 2010

2010-01-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Looking back I have been slack in updating this blog, therefore this year I will endeavor to keep it more up to date.

I am off to Wellington for a holiday but also to do an architectural shoot down there for a client so I should have plenty to share on my return.

This image is one that I took for a model portfolio this week, first job of 2010.

The City

2009-10-16T19:03:00.000-07:00

I have started photographing New Plymouth, not the usual veiws but concentrating on the impact of people on the enviroment and back alleys. These are the aspects of a city that we don't often acknowlege but still exist.

Here are two of the images one showing a playground carpark where people have discarded takeaway rubish. The other image is a service alley.

Awards

2009-09-10T20:55:00.000-07:00

This year has been good year for awards. I enter the NZIP (New Zealand Institute of Professional Photographers) awards anually, this year I was awarded 1 silver award and 5 Bronze awards, was a finalist in the commercial category and gained Master of Photography within the NZIPP.

Below are Two of the images that were entered into the landscape category, the first of the images of Pungarehu was the silver award winner and the panorama of the storm earned a bronze award

I also entered the (APA) Austrailian Professional Awards for the first time and gained one Silver award for the image below.

One Week

2009-07-07T00:03:00.000-07:00

I have been getting a hard time lately about the lack of activity on my blog (quite rightly).

Last month I set myself a project - to take one good landscape photograph a day for at least one week, I kept it up for two weeks. While some days it was a chalenge (timewise) I found it a rewarding time and did get some great images.

One of the challenges was having to make an image no matter what the weather was doing, during the two weeks I had rain, fog, frosts and strong winds.

So here are a couple of the images that I took.

AmeriCARna part 2

2009-03-05T15:34:00.000-08:00

I have now got around to working on some of the images that I took last weekend at Americana. I am pleased with the results as the images taken inside the stadium were tricky due to having to shoot over the barriers and around all the people that were there.

AmeriCARna

2009-02-28T17:50:00.000-08:00

Every year Taranaki is host to the Americarna festival. This is a gathering of American vehicles from all over New Zealand and some from overseas. The 4 day festival ends with a country fair, this year the storm that sweeped the country did not put a dampener on the day.

I attended the fair this year armed with my camera and here are some of the images that I produced.

It was difficult not having control over where the cars were and shooting in amongst the crowds that were there, however with a bit of patiance and keeping my eye out for opportunities, I am plesed with some of the images that I was able to produce.

Awakino

2009-01-25T00:25:00.000-08:00

I have just spent a quick break at Awakino Heads plenty of sun, sand and surf. Took some photos while I was there but I mainly relaxed.

At our beach access someone had built this shelter and I could not resist a shot of it. It was a good sturdy structure and it would be interesting to see how long it stands.

One of the unique features that I found were the pools made by the rock being eroded away, the shapes of the pools and the sculptural quality of the rock was quite amazing as shown in the image below.

On the drive home I couldn't resist this building covered in graffitti. I dont know what phex is or stands for so maybe some one might tell me (or I might be better off not knowing).

December wanderings

2008-12-29T21:31:00.000-08:00

Hi welcome to my new blog, I am hoping to use this as a forum to show new work and post my activities and thoughts.

I will start with my recent wanderings in Tasmania. We decided to have a December break to aviod the pre-Christmas madness and recharge before the busy wedding season coming up. So early December we headed to Hobart.

Hobart is an interesting town, it is a good mix of new and old buildings and has been able to retain most of the heritage of the area within a growing city. I like to walk around cities as you see more than you would driving through them, so I spent a bit of time blindly walking the streets.

One of the areas of Hobart that I enjoyed was Battery Point where many of the older buildings are and still retain their magic.

The house above sat alone on an intersection and still retains a feel of grandness of many of the houses in the area. The buildings in this area date from the early to mid-1800's.

During our first week there we also visited the historic town of Richmond. I photographed this car outside the Congregational Church (1873) what drew me to this was a new car trying to look old outside a church that is old.

During a three day camping trip to Fortescue bay we popped down to Port Arthur to see the historic prison. It was a very picturesque place to have a prison.

The image above was one of the images that I took there. It was very hard to get an image in a

popular tourist site and have no people in it. It just shows that if you persevere you can get it right.