yanzhang

Mount Fox is a mountain that I wanted to climb in July 2016, but not

proceed due to a bad weather condition. So this place has set to be

one of my priority goals during my December 2016 New Zealand mountain

trip.

 

After stayed several days in Mount Cook area, I drove to west coast

for climbing Mount Fox, although there was only about one day weather

window for this action.

 

With a height of 1645 m, Mount Fox is not a technical mountain from a

climb perspective. But its steepness and easy to get lost in a foggy

situation makes this journey still challenging, especially when one

wants to carry all camping and photography gears to the mountain.

 

There was a ideal spot for camping in this mountain, somewhere around

1240 m high near the summit - not exposed and easy to access water

from tarns.

 

I started my climb before 10:00am on 8 December 2016. Since the day

before had had heavy rain falls, the track was full of mad, wet and

slippery. With a full back of camping and photography gears on, it

took me 5 hours to reach the destination.

 

I found this composition showing the two major tributaries from the

mountain flowing into the sea. The sunset light beautifully irradiated

the mountain ridge and plain below, given a great sense of depth of

this scenery.

 

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There had been heavily raining and a thunderstorm during 11-12

November 2016 night. But the rain stopped around 9am on 12 November

morning. I predicted that those waterfalls in Blue Mountains would be

interesting after an overnight heavy rain, so decided to go for a shoot.

 

I was right, Edit Fall was about twice larger than its usual size. I

waited here long enough until the midday sunlight started to shine on

the waterfall.

 

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It was around 5:20am on 30 April 2016 local time. During this a

pre-twilight period, some thin clouds around the peaks already started

to change colors, while the moon still hang high in the sky and shined

the Fitz Roy peaks brightly. This moonlight with pre-twilight glow

light enabled me to take this image without loosing any details.

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Laguna Sucia is one of the three lakes under Fitz Roy peaks. Getting

to this spot is not trivial. I hiked to this place and stayed for one

night. The outcome was simply a reward. Thanks for viewing this image.

On 5 May 2016, I departed from El Chalten at 5:00am, I hiked in the

darkness with a full load of climb backpack (25 kg) - my journey of

climbing to Glacier Torre began. I arrived at Laguna Torre at 7:40am

and waited for my climb companion Andy.

 

This image was taken during my waiting for Andy's arrival.

Surprisingly, when I got there, I found Laguna Torre was completely

frozen - that was very different from what I saw 2 weeks ago. I could

see so many icy blocks everywhere along the edge of the lake. This

image captured an amazing scene during the sunrise moment.

 

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Sylvia Falls in Blue Mountains of NSW, Australia has been a subject I

photographed many times over the years. I took this image on 17

September 2016, when the sunlight was shining from the top of the

waterfalls, and particularly made the waterfalls in a great lighting

condition. Thanks for view this image.

In my recent New Zealand mountain expedition, my original plan was to

climb to two or three high places in Mount Aspiring. But continuous

heavy rains affected my plan, and I had to stay in Wanaka for two days

waiting for a feasible weather window. This image was taken when I was

waiting in Wanaka. This image was taken when I was waiting in Wanaka.

The late afternoon light was just amazing when the rain stopped.

 

Roy's Peak is a mountain in the South Island of New Zealand, standing

between Wanaka and Glendhu Bay with the height of 1,578 m. From its

summit, it offers a grand view across Lake Wanaka and up to the peak

of Mount Aspiring.

 

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Taken from the edge of Laguna del Los Torres in a calm and stunning

sunrise morning. Thanks for viewing this image.

Thanks for looking at this image. Here is what I did: 4 shots for the sky, each at ISO3200，30 seconds. These shots sufficient to cover the entire sky what I wanted to include in the final image. Then 4 shots for the mountain and foreground, ISO 1600, 5 minutes each, with noise reduction on, so each took 10 minutes to complete. I took the 4 sky shots first, that took 2 minutes in total. Then the 4 mountain foreground shots took 40 minutes to complete. There were no issue for stitching the 4 sky shots together.

New Zealand's Southern Alps probably is one of the greatest places in

the world to view the night sky, especially in early July each year,

because during this period, every night, from 12:00am, the Milky Way

centre would move down towards the west, which makes the stunning

Milky Way become paralleling with the west faced mountain ridges.

 

After doing precise study, I decided to take this advantage and climb

to some high place in Mount Aspiring.

 

Climbing to Liverpool Hut needs some effort - one has to first hike 8

km starting Aspiring Hut along West Matukituki Valley Track, then

climb 1.2 km with 530 meters elevation gain, then hike another 2 km

along the mountain ridge before reaching the hut. But the reward is

tremendous: the grand view over the valley is just amazing.

 

I took this photograph at 1.40am on 6 July 2016, while the Milky Way

centre had moved towards the west just above the mountain ridge. The

tiny Liverpool Hut down the valley illustrated the scale of this giant

mountain range. The far left side red light was from Wanaka downtown -

60 km away from Mount Aspiring.

 

This panorama image was a result of 8 successive shots stitching

together covering 180 degree wide view from left to right.

 

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Norah Head Lighthouse is located in Norah Head, the Entrance in the

central coast of New South Wales. This image was taken in Spring 2015.

 

This image was a panorama consisting of 12 successive shots on two

rows in order to completely capture the entire Milky Way. Soon after

sunset, the Milky Way was just across over the lighthouse while the

sunset light still illuminated the horizon.

 

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Going to the mountains has become my passion of experiencing the

wilderness, which has not to be for a photography purpose. The raw and

vast mountainous features always give me more emotional responses than

any other places.

 

This image was taken in December 2015 during my New Zealand Alps

expedition.

 

We woke up at 4:00am. By looking at the dark sky, we knew that the

morning light would be interesting. Not far from our campsite, we went

to this tarn and found that it actually provided a beautiful

illustration of the mountain surroundings at such magic moment.

 

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Why did these peaks shine in red? Well, this was a question I asked

myself when I firstly captured such amazing phenomenon in late April

2016 in Patagonia Los Glaciares National Park.

 

Eventually, I discovered that in a clear night, when the moon started

to rise above horizon, moonlight could lighten up Fitz Roy peaks and

made them shine in red. But such red shining effect varied

significantly in terms of the duration, intensity and appearance time

depending on the size of moon phase.

 

From late April to mid May 2016, I spent a great deal of time to

observe this amazing phenomenon from different locations in Los

Glaciares National Park. By the end, I got good knowledge about the

phenomenon of rising moonlight shining effect on Fitz Roy peaks.

Another interesting discovery was: it seemed that such phenomenon did

not exist for other mountain peaks such as Cerro Torre peaks.

 

This image was one of the four images I captured successfully such

phenomenon. What made this image special was that the Milky Way was

also moving down enough towards the mountain peaks at 7:00am local

time so that the red peaks of Fitz Roy and Milky Way were captured

together with one frame from a 14mm wide angle focal length. The

foreground of this image was captured successively with another frame.

 

The entire process of capturing this image took 15 hours from the

beginning of arriving at this high location to the time of getting

down the hill after sunrise.

 

According to our calculation, the chance of capturing the Milky Way

and moonlight red peaks of Fitz Roy together is very slim, probably

less than 5 times throughout a calendar year in Los Glaciares National

Peak.

 

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Happy New Year to everyone!

 

Starting to post my photos made from very recent trip to Southern Alps

in New Zealand.

 

Due to the bad weather, we had to leave Darran Mountains in Fiordland

earlier than our plan, and drove to Mount Cook, where there was a

better chance to get a one or two days weather window. We had to wait

a whole day in Unwin Hut until the weather settled down the next day.

Then we started our two-day trip to a high mountain location.

A spectacular sunset occurred on the first evening during our two-days

camping in this mountain location. I found the edge between the twin

tarns provided a very appealing leading line in this composition,

while the far away Mount Cook summit and other mountain peaks

illustrated such beautiful mountain surroundings.

 

Some technical information for this photo: this is a single exposure,

and one 2-stop GND Soft Lee filter and a 105mm LB+W Singh Ray CPL

filter are used.

 

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I should add that the sunrise was so intensified that I have to reduce the red color saturation when I process the image.

Before I started my mountain trip to the Southern Alps in the South

Island of New Zealand, I stopped over in Lake Tekapo for one day. This

photo was taken at the sunrise moment with a very strong windy

condition. Thanks for viewing this image.

Nicely captured. The person adds an important element to this image.

 

In a raining afternoon, I made this image using 30 seconds long

exposure, which gave an effect of tranquility at this dynamic

location. Thanks for viewing this image.

I drove to the mid north coast under a severe weather - storm together

with heavy hailstones. I had to pull over my car many times on the way

due to very poor visibility. A local told me that he had never seen

such wild weather in 30 years.

 

It was a beautiful sunrise on the second day during my recent trip to

Mid North Coast of NSW. The cave provided a unique perspective of

looking through at this giant rock stack on the shoreline.

 

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I drove to the mid north coast under a severe weather - storm together

with heavy hailstones. I had to pull over my car many times on the way

due to very poor visibility. A local told me that he had never seen

such wild weather in 30 years. After an overnight continuous storm,

the rain stopped before dawn and I had a rewarding morning light - as

always promised after every bad weather appearance.

 

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After 4 years, I decided to process one more image taken in Li River

in 2011. This was a single shot, a few minute later than my previous

image "Li River Sunrise". Today when I look at both images side by

side, I still like them both, each presents some different mood and

light effect.

 

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I had a 3 weeks trip to Patagonia in April 2015, in both Chile and

Argentina sides. During our stay in El Chalten, we camped two nights

in De Agostini campsite. This image was a panorama consisting of 11

individual photos taken successively on 15 April, near the campsite,

during the sunrise moment at Laguna Torre. Thanks for viewing this image.

Another image from my recent trip to Mount Taranaki.

 

Here is some background information:

 

Mount Taranaki, also called Mount Egmont, is an active but quietscent

volcano located in Taranaki region in the west coast of the North

Island, New Zealand. The 2518-metre-high mountain is one of the most

symmetrical volcanic cones in the world. In early July 2015, I

undertook a backpacking trip to this mountain. I trekked to two

specific mountain huts: Maketawa Hut and Pouakai Hut, and witnessed

one of the most dramatic weather phenomenons I have ever met during my

stay in the mountain. After a severe storm for 20 hours, the mountain

returned to its calmness. I came to this location before 4:00am on 4

July 2015. The starry sky was impressive over the summit of Mount

Taranaki. This is one single shot capturing such amazing mountain and

sky and their reflections in the tarn.

 

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Taken on 4 July 2014, early morning before sunrise. After 20 hours

severe storm on 3 July, it was a peaceful morning at Mount Taranaki

with a gentle breeze. Thanks for viewing this image.

I started to shoot around this tarn from 3:30am on 4 July. I witnessed

the dramatic change of the sky during the following 5 hours - from the

amazing moonlight starry sky to this graceful sunrise.

 

Mount Taranaki is one of the most beautiful and featured mountains I

have ever seen so far. Another nice thing to visit this mountain is

that there are many possible ways to explore this corn-shaped mountain

from different directions and different means. Someday in a near

future I will climb to the summit of this mountain.

 

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