Private Ninja waiter

After some warm Sake and amazing dishes served by our very own Ninja (Samurai swords, fire, dry ice and an edible Bonsi tree were amongst just some of the nights entertainments) If you are ever in Tokyo, its a must….

We finaly rested our heads at  4am (NZ time) and took 40 winks before jumping on the Shinkansen (bullet train) towards the mountains and Nagano. That was of course after a visit to Shibuya (the worlds busiest pedestrian crossing)

Oh Tokyo, the sights you see….

After the very efficient and massively fast bullet train that whisked us to Nagano at a speed of 250km an hr we arrived in quite a different temperature. As Japan is so efficient, we had sent our ski bags directly to our hotel (the wonderful Tokyu Hotel) in Hakuba from the airport, so with just a back pack each it was spectacularly easy. An hr and a half bus ride later we were in the magical village of Hakuba nestled in the impressively massive Japanese Alps. As it had snowed 30 cm we made the decision to head to Cortina, one of the many resorts in Hakuba, notorious for its epic tree skiing, a mind blowing hotel, which resembles a large plastic Tudor house and an one of the best Onsens (natural hot spring bath) I have ever bathed in. Only in Japan.

Cortina Hotel

Julia Atikinson of Studio Home shredding the Japanese goods…

Vicci Miller

After a day at Cortina, the sun showed its face so we then headed up to Happo One, famous for its epic open spaces, huge alpine views and entry to the most incredible Japanese back country. We hiked up for an hr and a half above the top lifts with our guide Dave from Evergreen Outdoor Center to access this back country mecca.

Tim and Tom hiking along the ridge

Tom Dunbar

Back country Hakuba goodness, Tom, Vicci and Tim skied.

Tim Rutherford

To soothe our aching bodies, we have had an Onsen every day…

Here are the ladies bathing…

The mountain Onsen 40 mins from Hakuba. Dreamy….

The night of two dinners

Love Japanese food…

We are now in Shiga Kogen and had a sweet day shredding the pow, after a cultural day yesterday of an Onsen village, Geisha and snow monkeys. Will update a blog soon…

To welcome in the New Year I would like to share with you some images from the past few weeks of summer in Wanaka, Queenstown and my home of Tarras.

Stars over Lake Wanaka on New Years eve. 3am. Taken on Stevensons Island looking back towards Wanaka

This was shot outside the cottage where I live on my boyfriend Tim’s farm in Tarras. Tim’s father and sister admiring the fiery sky…

Tarras looking over towards Queenstown

Taken on New Years Eve day, from a R44 helicopter on a photography assignment job for Tourism NZ. This is where the Lower Shotover River meets the Kawarau River outside of Queenstown.

West Wanaka at sunrise

Looking over Glendhu Bay, Lake Wanaka

Glendhu Bay, Lake Wanaka

Paddock Bay, Lake Wanaka

Looking over to the Remarkables, Queenstown in the evening light whilst on a mountain bike shoot. Sweet view!

Stars over Lake Wanaka. You can see the milky way! I have always wanted to capture the reflection of the stars, this is the only night where I have found the lake to be still enough! Beautiful New Years night sky…

This is a shot taken at the end of the drive where I live, on The Point Farm, Tarras. 14,000 acres of high country farm over looked by the stunning St Bathans range. I am a lucky girl!

The view from my kitchen window…

The Point cows…

I would like to thank you all for your continued support and interest in my work. It means a lot to me that people check out my blog, and read my wee stories about adventures I am fortunate enough to go on. I aim to make 2012 filled with adventures, exciting photography assignments and hard work. My next adventure is a two week trip to Japan on the 13th January, shooting photos for a number of publications, but primarily for Japan Tourism. I will be posting photos of my trip so watch this space! HAPPY NEW YEAR MY FRIENDS….

Flying into the mighty Franz Joseph Glacier

Her ferocious jaws ready to swallow you whole!

Looking out over the top of Franz Joseph Glacier from Centennial Hut

Playing amongst the ice
After a successful first day shooting we headed back to the hut with the idea of going out to shoot sunset. As we were putting our skins on to tour hut-wards the most ferocious wind ripped up and knocked us all from our feet, blowing gear and us everywhere! It was quite a struggle getting back to the hut with the gale force winds, but we all made it, and hunkered down in the hut while she blew, and blew, and… blew. There was no chance of heading back out for more shooting. Instead we had a stellar feed of spag bowl and preyed the hut wouldn’t be blown off the side of the mountain. We were blessed that night with an awesome sky as the storm blew in.

What a pearler of an evening (this photo is deceptive, what you cant see is the gale force winds!) Too bad we had to enjoy it sheltering ourselves away from the elements inside the hut.

The sun poked its cheeky face over the top to say goodbye to us for the next 32 hours

Not much sleep was had that evening as it felt like you were sleeping next to a 10 ton truck going past your head at 100km hr every 10-15 seconds. The wind rattled us around all night and all the next day, which was a total write off. We spent the entire day cooped up in the shelter of the hut, only leaving to check that, yes it was still raining and yes, it was still blowing its t**s off (or to visit the little girls long drop) So we made use of this time by playing endless card games of Arsehole which began quite civilized, but soon many silly rules were added, such as announcing very loudly to the hut that ‘Thomas is King’ every-time you played a 5. We also took the opportunity to learn a thing or two, and utilised our wonderful guides buy stringing ourselves to the ceiling, and practicing prussocking up the rope. A technique used to save oneself from an icy grave down a crevasse. Next we abseiled off the bunk beds; a perfect replica for a 100m cliff.

Going slightly mad inside the hut…

Night soon came and it was to early to bed in preparation for a 5am start. It was forecast to be clearing, so we were going to be up and ready to go adventuring (if it was starry that was) And it was.

Starry starry morning! 5am and the skies were clear….

The freshly rained, wind sculpted and then frozen solid snow was ready for us to climb a mountain. And that we did. The call was made to scale a close by peak, taking a route up an ice waterfall. This would really test our ski mountaineering skills. And as I wanted to shoot some snaps of the guys climbing up, I was first to go. Cripes, it was hard work but so fun! I climbed with my F-Stop camera bag securely on my back, ice axe in hand and crampons on feet. What a thrill. Once  I was up I was able to tie off and hang out over the edge to shoot the others coming up.

This is what we climbed…

Yes its me! And I’m smiling. It was way steeper than it looks, I promise! Thanks to Hugh Bernard for the photo

Tom and Janina near the top of the ice climb
After the guys reached the top of the ice fall, it was my time to abseil back down to get shots of their ski. After a good ski on spring corn it was a rush back to the hut to make our heli pick up time before the afternoon cloud rolled in of the Tasman Sea preventing us flying out. Luckily the cloud wasn’t too thick and the chopper pilots could find a way through to pick up our tired bodies.

Back out to the lush green planes of the West Coast

It was an awesome spring trip and many thanks to Neil Kerr, Adventure Consultants and of course The North Face for making it happen. More stories and photos in next years ski mags… Time to hang up the ski boots in time for summer, and the bike season. (until a sneaky trip to Japan to shred some pow in January of course!)

Flying up the Matukituki River towards Mt Aspiring. I love NZ…

We had such a wicked heli shoot for The North Face. The snow was super stable so we were able to ski anything we wanted, there were so many lines to be skied! With Fraser McDougall, Janina Kuzma, Mitchey Greig and Geoff Small and Whitney Thurlow as our guides, I was able to get some pretty awesome shots… I cant show you any right now I’m afraid! They all skied lines off the right side of this face above, as I hung over the cornice to shoot! Safely of course… ehheeem. Tim Pierce was there filming, so I will post his vid of the day soon!

Tick Tacks? Flying over sheep getting ready to be sheered.

The Matukituki River as it braids its way towards Lake Wanaka

Shadows and cows

Driving down from Snow Park, looking over towards the Cardrona access road. Dusty?!

Amongst all the time on snow, I have been hanging out at my boyfriends farm in Tarras. Sheering is in full swing so I took along my camera to get some snaps of the Merino sheep getting shawn. I love watching these highly skilled shearers at work.

The Merino sheep wait to go into the woolshed to get shawn at The Point Farm…

Here you see the wool classers and rousies (wool handlers) working together like a well oiled machine

It is The North Face Freeski Open Big Mountain competition this week, and I will be shooting the qualifications and finals at Remarkables. We are also waiting on a weather window to shoot an over night adventure for The North Face, a bit of a product shoot… The skies are gray at the moment, but its cooling down with snow forecast this week. Winter aint over yet!

I was up against some extremely talented and esteemed bike photographers:

Mattias Fredriksson, Sweden – www.mattiasfredriksson.com

Markus Greber, Germany – www.markusgreber.com

Kristoffer Kippernes, Norway – www.kippernesfoto.no

Grant Robinson, Canada/UK – www.grantrobinson.com

After some very long few days with early starts and late nights shooting (with the midnight sun in Sweden, we could shoot all night!), I finally had my slide show together. I have to say I was extremely nervous on the big gala night, with NO idea what so ever of what the other teams had produced. It was so exciting to see the other shows, and see how they portrayed their week. We all had the same challenging weather, from freezing fog, pouring rain and scorching sunshine. I was delighted to come out on top and win the title. It was a real honor just to be invited, but to win, just amazing.

Yay we won!!

SO in case you missed it on all the facebook spamming, I thought I would share it with you, along with some behind the scene shots thanks to photographer Simon Joren. To view the other slide shows head to http://dirt.mpora.com

(may I suggest full screen with the volume turned right up?)

Get the shot…

This shot of me is when I took this shot below (see the puddle in the distance? this is it below!)

Steve Murphy

Me and my team…Couldn’t have done it without a crew of such dedicated and ripping riders! Thanks guys!

So, Tim organised a chopper to shoot Jossi and his brothers, Beau-James and Jackson for the day at snow park, with a gimbal camera rig (a swanky camera mounted to the bottom of the heli, all controlled inside by the man that is Tim Pierce, and flown by incredibly talented pilot Alfie Speight, who has flown many a chopper for film shoots, including work on Lord of the Rings) It started with an early morning pipe session, with a perfectly cut empty pipe, glorious light and a sled for fast laps.

Jossi soaring while his brother Jackson and father Bruce watch…

Bruce zips Jossi back to the top of the pipe

Yes. That’s right. There is a chopper flying up the pipe!

Man + Helicopter + Sled = good times

After the morning session the chopper was put down to rest until the light softened in the evening. At about 4, there was another filming session on the triple kicker line with the boys as the sun set over Snow Park. I climbed up the tower of the chairlift to get a different view and hung on with one arm and shot photos with the other. Now my left bicep is dead…! In the last 10 mins of heli time I jumped in to get some stills of Jossi from the air. Hanging out of heli’s with the door open shooting photos is always fun…

Jossi Wells

I have another sunset shoot at Snow Park tonight on the jumps with the Faction Team that are over. Hopefully we get a good sunset! For the next two weeks I will be shooting the NZ Winter Games. So there wont be much to report blog wise. BUT check back soon for my winning slide show from the Scandinavian Photo Challenge, along with some behind the scenes shots.

Martin Place, Sydney

I wanted to share with you a few photos from a recent ad campaign that many of my winter images from New Zealand were used in. Air New Zealand ran an ‘exhibition’ in Martin Place Station in the center of Sydney’s CBD. My photos were amongst the work of Tony Harrington and Dan Himbrechts. To check out all the images that ran, go to http://www.airnewzealand.com.au/3hrsaway

Each shot has a ‘plaque’ next to it with the information about the shot. If you have a smart phone you can scan in the QRR code and listen to an audio guide about each shot. Clever eh!?

There is to be another exhibition in Southern Cross Station in Melbourne this month. If you are in Melbourne and Sydney go check it out!

It is really cool to see my shots up on bill boards, I have 10 in total involved in the ad campaign.

Many thanks to Sarah Rutherford for taking the shots for me!

I really enjoy doing fashion shoots, for something different and a good challenge. Here are some of my favorite shots from the day

Lake Tekapo under the Milky Way, taken with Canon 5d Mk II, 14mm 2.8, ISO 800, f2.8 for 30 seconds

I LOVE taking photos of the stars, and as soon as I could I set up to take this quick shot. 30seconds wasn’t quite enough time to capture the full extent of the sky, but this shot isn’t too bad. Shortly after taking this shot I met with Earth and Sky’s astro-photographer. He told me about the special high tech tracking mount that they use up there for taking shots of the stars. This large tripod has a machine that makes it track, so very slowly to keep up with the earths movements. If you take a long exposure of the stars, (longer than about 45 seconds) the stars start to leave trails in the sky. This is the earth moving, and how I get those photos of the star trails. It is hard to get a crisp shot of the stars, each one sharp and bright with a short shutter speed. With this machine, the camera will track with the stars, allowing you to shoot long exposures, allowing your camera to gather heaps of light leaving each star sharp.

The Milky Way with a slight Aurora. Taken with Canon 5d Mk II, 14mm 2.8, ISO 800, f4 for 5 mins

This was my first shot using the tracking mount. I was thrilled to see the red glow that you couldn’t see with the naked eye. It was a slight Aurora… I have been desperate to see and photograph the Aurora for a long time. I was so excited to be able to use this machine, but I didn’t have very long to experiment and play as our tour was leaving. The only trouble with this tracking mount is that you cannot combine shots of the sky with earth in it, as if you are following the stars, the earth will become blurry in the shot. I tried another 5 min exposure with the earth in it, trying to get more of the Aurora.

Looking South, the red glow is the Aurora. As you can see the earth silhouette is not sharp. But the stars are! The white ‘clouds’ are in fact star clusters…

The next day we took our time on the drive back to Wanaka and did a wee tiki tour past Mt Cook, Lake Ohau and the Clay Cliffs. It was such a stunning day, and it was so great to take time on this drive, to stop and take photos, and explore.

Aoraki – Mt Cook in all her glory… I will never tire of taking photos of this beauty

Mt Cook in the far distance taken from the canal roads, glassy and still

The road to Lake Ohau

Having been to Ohau many times in the winter to ski, it was wicked to drop in to the lodge in the autumn and hang out at the glassy lake. Ohau is a favorite spot of mine. The skiing, the lodge and the lake make it an awesome place to hang out.

Lake Ohau

The Clay Cliffs at Omarama – driven past SO many times and never stopped to check them out. Very cool….

Back at my boyfriends farm, the sun was setting and the light was amazing. I took some last shots of the day…

This was taken with my Leica D-Lux 5

Last shot of the day of Merino Sheep…

Wilkin River jet boating…

We started the morning of with a quick scout around the mountains in the bird and took a look at some of the glaciers, the famous Lake Crucible and the recently burnt down Siberia Hut (very sad!) With the door off the chopper it was time to shoot the jet boats as they raced up the Wilkin River. Shooting photos from a heli will never get boring, I just LOVE the shots you can get with wings! Such a fun shoot chasing jet boats, so very James Bond.

The amazing Lake Crucible, which has floating icebergs from the glaciers in spring, they had all melted leaving the black pool that looked just like a witches cauldron! Maybe that’s why they called it Lake Crucible!

James admiring the view from the heli, looking out to Lake Lucidious

Wilkin River Jets (a whole lot of fun)…

I just LOVE the colour and clearness of the water in NZ…

Negotiating some shingle and shallow waters…

Rest stop next to the native bush and sandflies

After the jet boat shoot, we took some shots at the Top Forks Hut and the Kirin Forks Hut, before regrouping down in the Siberia Valley. From here I took shots of the beautiful walk over the pass, through the native bush, back to the Wilkin River to get picked up by the jet boat.

Iona and Tim admiring the view looking back down into Siberia Valley

Raewin and Geoff walking through the lush NZ bush

Luckily when we got to the pick up point the jet boat was only 5 mins away, as the sandflies were some of the most ferocious I have ever experienced! I will leave you with this shot of the collection of sandflies that had gathered on my camera bag strap. These little nippers were rife… I have to say they are my least favorite part of NZ. But still not as bad as the Scottish Midge…