Keahi De Aboitiz punting here there & everywhere...

Cabrinha kitesurfing team riders,  Keahi De Aboitiz, Jamie Barrow & Geoffrey “Chuck” Waterson, stopped by Wellington yesterday on their 2011 Cabrinha TOUR of DUTY road trip from Christchurch to Auckland in New Zealand.

First stop was the new WildWinds store in the city for a meet & greet before heading out to check out some of the beaches in the Wellington area. After checking out Plimmerton, the Cabrinha crew settled on Titahi Bay just over the hill. They we greeted with 20-25 knot wind & an increasing 2-3 foot surf. The boys rigged up the latest Cabrinha kites & hit the surf, swapping between twin tips & surfboards throughout the session.

Jamie Barrow getting some height & grabbing the nose.

Keahi & Jamie were getting some major height boosting off the waves on their twin tips & Geoffrey “Chuck” Waterson was seriously throwing water, slashing any faces he came across with his board. Keahi then came in & grabbed the surfboard and was punting off any lip he found, pulling off a heap of strapless airs and a few air reverses too. The boys are back on the road again now heading north to Auckland – I hope they score a heap more wind & waves along the way.

You can check out the photos from the session below, or go directly to the gallery here to see them higher res.

Cabrinha Tour of Duty 2011 | Wellington | New Zealand – Images by Mark Gee

I Love Balian...

Balian is a village situated on the west coast of Bali around 2 hours drive north of Denpasar. It reminds me of the old Bali, before the thousands of tourists and developments around Kuta and the surrounding areas. I stayed at the Pondok Pitaya Surfer Hotel right on the beach at Balian and had a great time. There’s fantastic food, massage, surfing, exploring and kitesurfing right at your door. And as far as I was concerned, the best time of the day there was right around sunset.

The west coast of Bali is renowned for it's sunsets - you certainly won't be disappointed in Balian.

If you’re ever in Bali, go check out Balian for yourself. You can get there from the Kuta/Denpasar area with a driver. At the time of writing, this it cost me around $50 US one way. Or better still you can book a complete package of accommodation airport pickup through the guys at Bali Retreats in Australia.

Want to see more of my images from Balian? Well either check out the slideshow below or click here to see the full gallery.

Pondok Pitaya – Balian | Bali | Indonesia – Images by Mark Gee

I headed into Wellington late afternoon before the South Africa vs Fiji game with the camera to capture some of the street action. It was a beautiful day with a heap of things going on. The waterfront was hopping with live music & what seemed like an endless flow of South African supporters.

It wasn’t until I headed back up towards Courtney Place where I really found something of interest to photograph. A large crowd had gathered around a live performance that was a mixture of funky beats & rap dancing. The boys in the band were pumping out a heap of funky fusion beats while the guys busted the moves on the makeshift dance floor in front of an enthusiastic crowd.

Check out the frames I shot in the slideshow below, or click here to view the full gallery.

Street Beats | 2011 Rugby World Cup Street Photography – Images by Mark Gee

All of these were shot in color, but I went with Black & White duo-tone type processing as they seemed to work better.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to post these as I kind of liked them, but kind of didn’t, but they were all shot with one of my favorite lenses – The Canon 90mm TS-E.

This is a tilt-shift lens where you can use selective focus by tilting the lens to achieve miniature looking shots. The shift part of it is useful in architectural type photos where you can avoid convergence of parallel line when shooting taller buildings. Apart from that it’s a great portrait lens & pretty good for some landscapes too, as it’s super sharp with great contrast. Have a look at them & see what you think…

The bungalows at Pondok Pitaya located right on the beach in Balian. Great place to stay...

I wasn't quite sure what to think of this one - I sometimes like it, but then I change my mind & don't like it so much. It's probably the best example of this bunch of using the tilt-shift to make things look miniature.

I didn't tilt or shift the lens on this one, just shot it as is - such a sharp lens!

Photographing the night sky can be rewarding, but it's not simply just a matter of pointing the camera & pressing the shutter button.

I’ve been really getting into shooting the night sky lately, & it’s certainly a rewarding challenge if you can pull it off. Some people think you can just go out there, point the camera & press the shutter button, but it’s not quite as easy as that. A fair amount of time & planning goes into a shoot like this, & factors like weather & location are also very important.

On this particular night, I left home around 8pm, & drove a few hours to a location I had in mind. The initial setting where I wanted to shoot didn’t work out due to fog, so I went to plan B to find another location nearer to the coast where hopefully the skies were clear. Luckily as I got closer to the coast, the fog cleared & I was greeted with a sky sparkling with millions of stars that you would just not see amongst the city lights.

Light pollution - It can certainly look cool in a photo, but it's not ideal when shooting the night sky

It was a fairly remote place so it was really dark, which is exactly what you need for photographing the night sky. I’m lucky enough in New Zealand that I can just drive a few hours & get totally get away from the light pollution that glows from our city’s lights. Even the smallest amount of light from nearby suburbia will contaminate the frame you are trying to capture, so it’s best to get as far away from civilisation as you can.

I set up & shot a few test shots. This night I went with a 15mm fisheye for a change, but generally I stick with wide lenses unless I’m shooting something like the moon. It’s hard to see anything through the viewfinder, so you need to just point your camera in the general direction you are interested in & shoot a few test shots. After that you can fine tune any composition by moving the camera slightly & shooting again until you are happy with what you’ve got. It usually takes me quite a few of these test shots to get something I’m really happy with, & it’s not unusual for me to shoot over 100 shots in a night’s session.

The real important thing with night time shooting is getting your exposure right. If you shoot even slightly underexposed, chances are you’ll be totally disappointed with your images once you get them on your computer back home. I always expose so that the blacks are lifted a bit. You can always add contrast to a night time image, but it’s pretty much impossible to move the blacks up if you don’t have any information in them, & you’ll just end up with a heap of clipping in the low end. I never rely on the display on the back of my camera when reviewing my night time shots. Even if they look great there, use your the histogram on your camera, & make sure you keep those blacks under control.

The Milky Way in all it's glory

As the night became early morning, the sky became more & more spectacular. The Milky Way was shining so bright that night – it was just awesome to step away from the camera & look up to watch, catching glimpses of the occasional shooting star that shot across the night sky.

It was close to 2am, & the Milky Way was pretty much in an optimal position. It was almost extending from horizon to horizon, so I decided to basically point the camera straight up & shot that. It took two images for me to get total coverage of what I was after, but I ended up stitching them together giving me a spectacular image as seen in the photo above.

After about 3 hours of driving, & another 3 hours of shooting, it was time to head home. I was pretty happy with what I did capture that night, although there is always that drive for me to shoot something better. So I’m sure there will be more of these nights where I head out on a crazy star chasing expedition…it’s totally worth the effort if you can get some nice images from it.

Sometimes a bit of light pollution can add to your photo, like here with the orange glow in the clouds. I think it was a plane flying through the clouds that lit them up like that...maybe it was a UFO!

I’m always happy to share a few tips from my experiences of going out & shooting the night sky, some are technical & some practical, but here they are:

• If you can, shoot with a full frame camera. The more info you can capture onto that sensor the better. For interests sake I shoot most of my night time stuff with a Canon 5d MkII
• Use a fast lens & shoot wide open – Ideally f/2.8 & below. You want to allow as much light through that lens as possible. I generally use wider lenses unless I’m shooting the moon.
• Shoot with a high ISO. It’s true, cameras these days can see better in the dark than us.
• Be critical about your exposure setting and use your histogram when reviewing images to determine this. I always expose up a bit so my blacks get lifted to try & avoid clipping in the low end.
• Always shoot with manual focus. Auto focus is pretty much useless when shooting the night sky. You will want to be shooting pretty close to infinity anyway.
• A sturdy tripod is a must!
• Use camera shutter release cable or remote, or if you don’t have one, use the shutter timer function on your camera. Avoiding the extra camera movement by manually pressing the shutter button can make the difference between a sharp & not so sharp image, even when using a tripod.
• Proper planning of when, where & what you’re going to shoot goes a long way. Personally I couldn’t do without this iphone/ipad app called Star Walk. It gives you a real time map of the night sky just by tilting your iphone/ipad upwards & in the direction you want to shoot. It also has a heap of handy other information like sun/moon/planet rise & set times.
• Since you’ll be shooting in pretty much complete darkness, a good quality torch or head lamp is super helpful…works much better than trying to use the light from the screen of your mobile phone!
• You’ll usually be going to fairly remote places & spending a few hours there when shooting, so it’s a good idea to bring along a supply of food & water.
• Dress for the occasion. In warmer climates you mightn’t have to rug up, but in colder climates you are definitely exposed to the elements, so make sure you have plenty of warm clothes & layer up.
• In humid or cold climates, lenses tend to get condensation on them especially when shooting at night. There are commercial solutions available for this like the DitoGear DryEye, but I’ve also had success with wrapping reusable hand warmers in an old t-shirt & wrapping that around the lens.
• Whilst going solo to shoot the night sky can be a nice thing to do sometimes, it tends to be a lot more fun to be able to share the experience with someone. Team up with another photographer(s) or someone crazy enough to go off into the night chasing the stars until the small hours of the morning. You’ll probably get a lot more out of it that way, even if it’s just company to keep you awake on the way home…

Well that’s pretty much it for now. If you have any comments or questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below, or just contact me via email here.

Karim Sahai, a world renowned travel photographer & fellow Weta Digital compositor, has organised a great project with a group of us artists from Weta Digital and Weta Workshop to produce a series of thirteen beautiful limited edition fine art prints with all the proceeds from their sale to be donated to the earthquake and tsunami relief efforts in Japan.

These 33x48cm prints are individually signed and numbered by every artist, and are presented in a gorgeous black portfolio box. The stunning prints were made using the finest colour pigments and archival baryta paper. Only 3 prints of each image were made.

Here is your chance to own a very unique memento from some of the artists at Weta. It is also an opportunity to turn our best asset  – our creativity -  into compassion, selflessness.

These very limited edition fine art prints are now available for purchase for $950 per portfolio.
To order one of the only three series of prints and assist the recovery efforts in Japan, please email me at markg@markg.com.au but be quick as there is already a fair amount of interest in these.

The participating Weta Digital and Weta Workshop artists are:

Greg Broadmore – concept artist * Julian Bryant – compositor * Myriam Catrin – texture artist * Mark Gee – lighting technical director  * Ken Gimpelson – lighting technical director * Robin Hollander – compositor * Miae Kang – lighting technical director * Dmitri Krasnokoutski – shader writer * Laure Lacroix – texture artist * Paul Redican – compositor * Marcus Schoo – software developer * Malino Suzuki – motion editor * Masaya Suzuki – texture artist.

Below is a image of each print making up each of the portfolios.

Recently I was fortunate enough to be interviewed by Australia’s leading kiteboarding magazine -  Australian Kiteboarder as part of their photographers profile. The interview appeared in their March 2011 edition of the magazine. A couple of my other photos were also published in that edition too – thanks KBMag! Below is the interview in full.

NAME: Mark Gee

NICKNAME: markg

HOMETOWN:

Born & bred in Coffs Harbour NSW before heading up to the Gold Coast when I finished school.

WHEN DID YOU START SHOOTING:

I’ve always had an interest in photography & started shooting back in high school, but it wasn’t until I came to New Zealand to work in the feature film industry around 8 years ago that I became serious with my photography.

WHY DID YOU START SHOOTING PICTURES OF KITBOARDING AND NOT HOT CHICKS:

Hot Chicks…no way – they are way too hard to work with! Na…I’ve shot a few hot chicks in my time as well as a heap of other stuff, but I have a passion for kiteboarding, & I believe you will always shoot a better photo of something you are passionate about.

WHAT’S THE BEST PICTURE YOU HAVE TAKEN AND WHY:

Wow, that’s a tough question…I’ve taken a lot of pictures that I loved and at the time and thought was the best. But in the end I always seem to take something that I like better. So as far as a best picture, for me that’s always changing. Although I really like a kitesurfing shots I took recently. It’s a shot of Keahi De Aboitiz charging in the waves at last year’s Merimbula Classic. Just the timing & composition of that shot – Keahi hitting the lip throwing his fin out, the sharpness & detail of the foreground against a somewhat interesting & defocused background. All the elements just seem to tie in on that shot which makes it my current favorite.

Pages 3 and 4 of my Australian Kiteboarder Magazine interview.

DO YOU KITE YOURSELF:

Yep, been kiting for just over 10 years now.

WHO DO YOU LOOK UP TO IN THE PHOTOGRAPHY WORLD:

It’s not so much who I look up to, but who I get inspiration from. And there are a ton of photographers who inspire me. I’m good friends with a world renowned travel photographer, Karim Sahai, and he travels to some amazing places and shoots some absolutely inspiring and breathtaking stuff. There is also Eugene Tan of Aquabumps fame who’s style I really dig. And a few of the up & coming Australian surf photographers are really starting to think outside the square and shooting some great stuff too.

WHERE DO YOU SEE YOURSELF IN 5 YEARS:

In 5 years I’d like to be traveling & shooting a lot more kiteboarding all over the world. Going on assignment to shoot at tropical islands with pumping wind and waves would be a bonus!

GIVE US YOUR BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP:

Best tip that always saves me a heap of time when editing is never use the auto white balance function on your camera. Go with one of the presets or custom white balances instead. That way the white balance of all your shots during the shoot will be consistent, & you probably won’t have to spend the extra time editing the white balance of each shot individually in post.

A couple of my shots that also appeared in the magazine.

WHAT BRAND OF GEAR DO YOU SHOOT WITH AND WHY:

Canon, as I believe Canon cameras & lenses are the best when it comes to sports photography, which is obviously pretty important for kiteboarding. Sure, Nikon has some strengths over Canon (like less noise artifacts when shooting on a high iso) But for me Canon excels in most areas (although I wish they had made the 1D MkIV with a full frame sensor)

LAND SHOOTING OR WATER:

Shooting land is my favorite, I just like to have more control over the composition of my shots. But I also enjoy the challenge of shooting water – it’s always a buzz when you pull off a great water shot!

GIVE THE KITERS YOUR BEST RIDER TIP IF YOU’RE TAKING THEIR PICTURE:

Just be natural & don’t pose for the camera. (unless I ask of course) Hopefully you won’t even see me taking the shot. And if I’m shooting in the water & you think you are going to run me over, don’t worry, just do your thing & I’ll try to do mine…you have to get pretty close for a good fisheye shot.

HOW DO WE GET HOLD OF YOU IF WE WANT YOU TO TAKE OUR PICTURE:

Just head to my website: markg.com.au & you can contact me from there. Or if you want to keep up with my latest shots & projects, then just ‘like’ me on my Facebook page: www.facebook.com/markgphoto

Andy Yates - 2010 PKRA Freestlye World Champion. One of the other photos by me published in the magazine.

The super moon on the rise over Rimutaka Ranges to the east of Wellington, New Zealand.

The super moon forecast for the weekend of the 19-20th March didn’t disappoint. The skies in Wellington, New Zealand even stayed clear for once allowing me to get a heap of photos on both the Saturday & Sunday night. It’s the closest the moon has been to the earth in 18 years making it appear larger & brighter than a typical full moon.

I headed out both nights hoping for the best. Long lenses were definitely the order of the day, so I packed my kit with a Canon 500mm f/4, 1.4x extender & Canon 1D MkIV & Canon 5D MkII bodies. I also took a few shorter lenses including a 90mm tilt-shift lens.

I had specific ideas of what I wanted to capture, but in the end I didn’t totally get what I went out to get, but I did get some unexpected cool stuff, which is all part of the photographic adventure.

Check out the slide show below of my selected images of the shoot, or head over to my gallery for larger res images.

Super Moon | 19-20 March 2011 | Wellington New Zealand – Images by Mark Gee

Owen Wright, 2010 ASP Rookie of the Year, puts on a show for the swimmers.

I headed to Bondi Beach in Sydney recently to shoot at the 2011 Boost Mobile Surf Sho. The surfing event featured some of the worlds best surfers & the format of the competition was solely focused on aerial surfing. More than 30,000 spectators lined the beach to see the pros in action. Weather was great, but surf was small. This didn’t bother the surfers too much, as they certainly made the most of the conditions pulling off a range of aerial manoeuvres despite the small conditions.

Josh Kerr mid air during the manoeuvre that won him the 2011 Boost Mobile Surf Sho.

ASP Would Tour surfer Josh Kerr took out the event after pulling off a flawless forehand mute grab air reverse in the final. The manoeuvre earned him a 9 out of a possible 10 edging out current junior world champion Jack Freestone who ended up 2nd. Nike 6.0 surfer Julian Wilson ended up 3rd.

Pulling airs like this placed Jack Freestone second in the event.

Visually, the event was almost perfect for photographing. High performance surfing, crystal clear & vibrant blue water, & thousands of people on the beach. I shot around 1000 photos over the 3 days (I did shoot a lot of sequences firing the shutter at 10 fps). You can check out some of those photos in the slide show below, or just head here to view the gallery.

2011 Boost Mobile Surf Sho | Bondi Beach Australia – Images by Mark Gee

Pictured above is the Heavy Wave Series limited edition print. Each print is individually signed and numbered by me. They measure 105cm x 30cm and are printed on archival quality photographic paper. There are only 100 of these prints available. You can view larger sized images of each of the waves below.

The photographs were taken on Wellington’s rugged south coast in New Zealand. Huge seas are whipped up by large storms to the south east of Wellington, creating large ocean swells that travel for hundreds of kilometres before they hit the mainland. These photos capture the raw power of these waves as they break onto rocky reefs & shelves that make up a majority of the shoreline around Wellington’s south coast.

If you would like to purchase one of these limited edition prints, you can send me an email here for more details, or you can purchase it directly from here (just click on the add to cart button above the image) All prices are in New Zealand dollars & shipping is free throughout New Zealand. I can also ship worldwide.