When it comes to photography and my creative work in general, I’m always trying to think outside the box of how I can do things in new and creative ways, especially things that haven’t been done before.

A few years back, I successfully shot a short film of underwater motion control time-lapse, and since then I’ve thought of taking it a few steps further and try to capture an under/over water astro timelapse. My first attempt about a year ago was a huge fail, and since then I’ve been getting out when I can, scouting for suitable locations around my home in Wellington, New Zealand, and trying different gear and techniques to capture what I had in mind.

Earlier this month, I finally nailed it - still not technically perfect and I have a few more things to work out, but it was the best result to date. It was meant to also be a day to night under/over water astro time-lapse, but I had technical issues with the set-up, and missed my day time start by 40 minutes. Still I’m absolutely wrapped in the way it turned out, so I thought I’d put a clip together to show the actual time-lapse I shot, along with some behind the scenes footage.

The time-lapse was shot using a Syrp Genie One motion control unit for the camera motion, a Nikon D850 and Sigma Art 14mm lens housed in an AquaTech underwater housing. The planning of the position and timing of the Milky Way rising was planned with PhotoPills

Shot on the south coast of Wellington New Zealand, this underwater motion control time-lapse gives a unique perspective of life within the coastal rock pools. The shoot itself was challenging, with many months of trial and error. I used a Syrp Genie on the Magic Carpet slider as well as a Syrp Geni Mini for the motion control, and the time-lapse footage was shot with a GoPro Hero 5 Black camera.

When the sun goes down, nightfall takes us into a completely different world. It has a totally different vibe to daytime, and can be enjoyed in so many different ways. From chilling at home on the couch with a loved one to hitting the town for a night out, or simply heading into the outdoors and taking in a starry night until the stars disappear with first light. OVERNIGHT takes you on a continual 60-second time-lapse journey exploring this nocturnal world.

I shot OVERNIGHT entirely from home in Wellington New Zealand during the Covid-19 Lockdown. I had to get a little creative to make the shots feel like they were shot at various locations throughout Wellington, where in reality, they were all shot from my own backyard. This was certainly a challenge, and also one of the rules of the Four Walls Film Festival which inspired me to do this short film and enter it into the competition.

I used a Nikon 600mm f/4 super-telephoto lens with a 1.4x extender for some of the shots including the moon sequence, and a Nikon 70-200mm lens at various focal lengths for the city light shots.

For the Milky Way to City daylight sequence, a Nikon 14-24mm lens was used and shot as one continuous night to day time-lapse from 4am - 9am. Planning for this shot was crucial and done with the Photopills app. I used a Syrp pan/tilt motion control rig for the camera motion tracking the Milky Way until first light and ending up on the city as the sun rises from behind the camera. It was a fairly complicated motion control move with extensive use of keyframing in the Syrp app to get the motion timed perfectly.

I also used the Syrp Genie with the Nikon 600mm lens for a couple of panning time-lapse moves in the film. Since I was using a super-telephoto lens for this, it was critical that I had a steady tripod that could also handle the weight of the rig. The Manfrotto 055 Carbon Fibre tripod handled the job perfectly.

The moon sequence was planned out with Photopills, and the Syrp pan/tilt was used to track the motion.

To get seamless transitions, I shot large panoramas with the Syrp pan/tilt in pano mode on the app. This was then set up to connect the various shots locations in Adobe After Effects.

New Zealand is blessed with dark night skies and little light pollution. Even within the cities the Milky Way is visible to the naked eye, and you don't have to travel far from them to find some of the darkest skies in the world where you can see the night sky in all of it's glory.

I spend many hours under the night sky photographing the stars above. This time-lapse video is a collection of some of my most memorable experiences under the stars over the past year. All of the footage you see here was shot in the Wellington region on the North Island of New Zealand.

The first and last shot in this video was shot with a combination of a Syrp Genie for the linear motion, and a Syrp Genie Mini for the rotation which was set to match earth’s rotation. The other challenge in both these shots where the day to night/night to day exposure changes. This was done by changing the settings on my camera manually during the intervals in the timelapse, and then smoothing out the exposure change in LR Timelapse in post.

The Kaden Project is a charity film project of mine to help raise awareness of how important it is to give kids opportunities to explore their own interests in life. It could be anything like being part of a sports team, being creative with arts and crafts, and even leaning to play a musical instrument.

Unfortunately, some families simply can’t afford these opportunities for their kids, and this is where Variety New Zealand comes into it, to help kids have the childhood they deserve. Variety have set up the Have A Go Scholarship, where families can apply and get financial assistance so their kids can have a go at something they are interested in.

Kaden was one of the kids who received a Have A Go Scholarship with Variety. He is very passionate about music and wanted to learn the guitar. Variety was going to provide him with guitar lessons for a year and a rented guitar, but I wanted to take this one step further with Kaden. The idea was to fly Kaden to Wellington for a weekend, and surprise him with a few additional opportunities in addition to the scholarship.

I was fortunate enough to get Barnaby Weir from the New Zealand bands, The Black Seeds and Fly My Pretties on board for the project, and we began to make a plan. The plan went without a hitch, and it was a day of surprise, excitement and inspiration for not just Kaden, but all of us.

I want to thank all involved who helped make this film a reality - I’m sure we can all agree it was totally worth the effort!

My work has taken me to some amazing places and given me some incredible opportunities - it is living the dream, and part of my dream has always been to give something back.

In late 2016, I had the opportunity to be involved in a truly unique photography adventure, and immediately knew I wanted to give someone else that same opportunity. Someone who is passionate about photography, and ordinarily might only be able to dream of an adventure like this.

I made contact with Make-A-Wish New Zealand to help me get the ball rolling and find that person, and found Rebecca who happened to have a one true wish of being a photographer.

The Nkoilale Primary School is situated right next to the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya and not far from where I stayed at Bushtops Camps. The family of a founding member of Bushtops Camps who passed away recently, had donated benches and tables to the school. The students wanted to show us their appreciation for the donation, so we paid the school a visit.

While I was there, I found that some of the students were quite interested in my camera equipment, so I came back a few days later to give them the opportunity to learn how to take a photo and use a camera. None of the students had ever held a camera before let alone take a photograph, so giving these kids that opportunity to do this was one of the most humbling experiences of my life.

For more information on the Nkoilale School and the work that Bushtops Camps is doing with them, check out this link: https://bushtopscamps.com/destination/mara/activities/nkoilale-school-visit/