I'm so excited to give you a sneak preview of what is likely the final image in my dark and moody tūī series. "Forever calling me" speaks to an uncertain future for our resplendent tūī. And from now until the end of March 2020, limited-edition medium-sized (28x28cm) prints are available exclusively at Forest & Bird's webstore.

Ten percent of my proceeds for my bird art goes to conservation, and for this print Forest & Bird is the recipient. By going through their webstore, you increase that percentage even further because they also receive a commission.

Forest & Bird is one of New Zealand's largest and oldest conservation organizations - for nearly a century they have advocated from the grassroots to the highest government levels for our precious wildlife. I've been a member and supporter for over 15 years and I'm delighted to be able to support them further through my art (six pieces are currently available). If you want to support the birds through art, this is a great way to do it!

(In late March, Mr Tūī will then make his public debut at an exhibition in Akaroa and will be more widely available on my web store and in other galleries. If you're interested in larger or smaller limited-edition prints, just contact me for details.)

Some people dislike the holey nature of kawakawa (Piper excelsum), but I think it gives this under-rated native shrub some personality. Each leaf is uniquely carved out by the every-hungry kawakawa looper moth caterpillar. The birds adore the fruit and I adore a nice cup of peppery Kawakawa Fire tea.

It's week 2 in the 2020 Art of Birding challenge, and it was a simple one - to get inspired by leafy greens. Though my apologies to our snowed-in Northern Hemisphere participants who had much more of a challenge on their hands. I'm so glad so many of you were able to uncover some evergreen leaves.

400mm, f2.8, 160s, ISO 400, 0EV
​#artofbirding2020 #aob2020week2

I love taking photos of leaves, and often use them in my art by overlaying them with textures and collaging them to make leaf arrangements. Some examples are:

Do you have a favourite leaf?

We're kicking off Week 1 in the 2020 Art of Birding photo challenge with "Where I Stand," which alludes to the Māori concept of "tūrangawaewae" - a place of empowerment and connection. As a Pākehā and as someone who grew up living in many different places, I can only have an inkling of what it feels to be connected to the land in that way. The closest I come is my current home in Wellington, New Zealand, and especially Zealandia EcoSanctuary. For the past 16+ years I've been involved in this huge community project to restore an inner-city valley to a pre-human ecosystem. Not only have we transformed the valley into a lush landscape teaming with birdlife, but we've transformed the surrounding city. Wellingtonians are now fortunate to live in one of the few places in the world where biodiversity is increasing. 

Today we went for a typical walk at Zealandia, but instead of the usual feelings of peace and tranquility, I was struck by the feelings of impending doom. The light was low and the air filled with haze and the faint smell of burning. Not because of anything local, but because the apocalyptic climate-change-enhanced bush fires from Australia have spread smoke across the Tasman Sea over 2000km away to New Zealand. The scale of these fires is unfathonamble and unprecedented and I can't bear to think of the lives lost - both humans and other animals. So many friends and family across the ditch are in harm's way.

It's the start of new year and a new decade, which should be a time for hope and anticipation of good things to come, but it feels more like the beginning of the end of life as we know it. Is it really as bad as we're told? According to this recent article by Jonathan Franzen, it's probably worse, because as he quite rightly points out, scientists tend to be cautious and underestimate the likely impacts of climate change. We are now living a "new normal".

So what can we do? It seems so insurmountable, but I'd rather we try than just give up. It may just be a little thing, but I hope that this photo challenge gives some of us a voice to our concerns, and, in conjunction with compelling imagery, will spread ripples throughout our friends and families. Showing our love for our wildlife and wildspaces and what we have to lose if we don't change our ways. Right now. Right away.

Creativity ebbs and flows and after a busy patch doing something else it can be hard to get back into it. Sometimes the business side of art, other work, and life has to come first for a bit. I've been reflecting on what's helped me in the past and I thought I would share my thoughts with you - I know I'm not alone in needing some inspiration (and a kick in the pants)! I'd love to know what works for you - feel free to add ideas in the comments...

Do any of these suggestions resonate with you? What works for you? What else would you recommend I try? Let me know in the comments below...

So what's going on here? We have a super-intelligent parrot - Polly to her friends, but Professor to her students - at home and trying to relax but the kids are testing out their camera skills. We've all been there...

There's something about the aesthetic of old family photographs that I perversely love - the retro wallpapers, the jaunty angles and lack of focus, the look of terror on the poor victims, the fashion faux pas - and of course the memories - they're a delight to relive.  And I found some wonderfully cringing examples in my old family photo archive to share so you can perhaps see where I'm coming from with lovely Polly.

Those all-knowing eyes! I was completely captivated by this lovely youngster - she's as bright as a button and so curious about the world. She became "Professor Polly", and she reminds me so much of a super-smart friend who became one of youngest female professors in NZ's history (who coincidentally has a daughter named Polly!).

I have long been fascinated with bird intelligence and cognition. Study after study are now showing that birds are incredibly intelligent - just this week there was news about tool-use seen in kea (the kākā's cousin) in the wild. Long gone are the days when scientists thought that tiny brains relative to body size meant tiny abilities. Birds have vastly more dense innervation allowing smarts to be packed in much more tightly than human brains. And parrots and corvids are some of the brightest. 

Researchers are quite taken by the kākā as a study subject. They're cousins of the kea, who are thought to be the most intelligent bird species in the world, but kākā are rating similarly on the IQ scales. It is fascinating watching them solve the tasks the researchers set them. The thought was that as social birds they would learn by watching their friends solve problems. From what I've seen, it appears more competitive than that with each wanting to show that they can solve puzzles their own way. It was quite incredible to see how many different techniques there are to solve the simple task of acquiring a cashew nut tied to the end of a string.

Not only are kākā super intelligent but they have complex emotional and social lives. We do of course have to be careful at over-anthropomorphizing, but I fear under-anthropomorphizing has had a negative effect not just on our understanding of animal cognition but also animal welfare. They might not think or feel identically to humans, but they think and feel and we shouldn't assume less. 

And not only do we have a calendar, but through October and November, selected and additional photographs and longer stories from the calendar will be on exhibition in the Zealandia Stairwell Gallery. Come and find out why we love Zealandia so much!

​With stories by Louise Slocombe, Vanya Bootham, Chris Gee, and Lynn Freeman, and photographs by Janice McKenna, Hayley May, Andrew Hawke, Linton Miller, Chris Gee, Lynn Freeman, Brendon Doran, and myself, there is something of interest for everyone. 

And now the 2019 calendar is sorted, I'm already thinking about 2020 - what would you like to see featured?

The volunteer Storytellers' support Zealandia's fundraising efforts with the calendar and postcards, amongst many other activities. Individual artists and photographers also have high-quality prints and photographs available in the store. Proceeds from sales go directly to support Zealandia's not-for-profit conservation and restoration efforts.
​

The magical misty light hung around for only a few minutes; just enough time to take a bunch of photos with the wrong settings and then to figure out something that might work better and to hopefully get a nice shot. And the photos were indeed "nice," but not much more and I put them aside. On returning to them some months later, I realized that there was no one shot that had everything, but with some judicious compositing I could create a scene with a story.

I know some people have assumed that this image is a single photograph and have puzzled over how I got the shot, so I'd like to set the record straight, so to speak. And in one sense it is "just a photograph," far less messed about with than some of my images. But I believe that adding artistic licence and liberating oneself from pure photography, it's possible to more accurately capture a moment experienced and to share that emotion.

So what did I do? Four very similar photos went into this image - each was selected for what the birds were doing over the course of just 5 minutes. One was swimming making a spiral of ripples, two youngsters were looking excitedly into the water, another was "hanging out the washing to dry", and others were looking with anticipation into the new day. No one photo showed all that happening and there was no time to wait until they simultaneously did something - the mist was fading too fast. Choosing one photo as the main image, I did a first pass through camera raw to make basic adjustments to the exposure and lighting. I then carefully masked, adjusted with camera raw, and composited in the alternative birds to create a more interesting version of the scene. Then came a little bit of secret sauce; using Topaz Impression to add in a silky, painterly feel at a lowered opacity over the image, and then layering painted textures using soft-light blend modes to subtly change the lighting. When viewed at full size, the more painterly feel is much more apparent. A couple of passes through adjusting highlights and shadows and spot-healing distractions completed the image.

Do you like this image more or less now that you know how it came to be? Do you feel cheated and that it somehow isn't real? Does it take away the magic knowing what was added and how it was made? Or do you feel like you've seen through my eyes and into my soul? Have we shared a moment?

As soon as I started creating bird art I was asked "when are you going to do a tūī?" As a photo-artist, this isn't so easy because first I need to get the photos and you can't just ask a bird to sit right there and strike a pose. But eventually the stars aligned and "Unfurling" unfolded and quickly became my most popular print. And still the requests for more tūī came... So I turned my attention from my beloved kākā and spent more time searching for magic moments with the best-dressed boys of the NZ forest.

And after many hours of spending time with tūī, I came to see so many subtle differences among them. Each lacy nape is like a fingerprint, each poi is a fashion statement - some neat and tidy,  some worn more jauntily. And their colours! Not just black and white, but glorious shimmering shades of blue and green, with touches of purple and even gold.

I asked them for their stories. And they answered with dark, gothic tales of loss, defiance, colonisation, foreboding, and reclamation. The tales are still coming, but now is the time to let you in on some of their inner secrets. Stay tuned on Facebook or Instagram this week as I unveil these new works, or if you'd just like to see everything all in one place, jump ahead here.

There is something about the tūī that resonates with people, more so than other more iconic birds it seems. Whether it's their colours, their personalities, their vocal gymnastics, their ubiqituousness in many regions (thanks to predator control), tūī capture people's hearts and minds like no other. Have they enchanted you? What stories have they told you?

What an incredible week for wildlife lovers in Wellington! Our first blessing was a kiwi pukpuku (little-spotted kiwi) out foraging during the day at Zealandia. Finally a chance for some photos under good conditions! Although quite unusual behaviour for a nocturnal bird, he seems healthy and is feeding well. There looks to be plenty of grass grubs on offer. Speculation is that he may have lost his territory to a competitor so is feeding during the day to minimize conflict. I wonder too if his vision has deteriorated further (he has a known eye issue) and he might not be able to tell day from night anymore - kiwi don't have strong vision, relying far more on smell and hearing, so it's not necessarily a problem for him. A visitor asked me if perhaps he should be taken somewhere where he can be looked after and have his day-night regulated, but really what better place than at Zealandia where he is safe to roam free where ever and when ever he chooses?

Our second blessing was the sudden appearance of a southern right whale in Wellington Harbour. It is a beautiful sight to see a whale frolicking in our picturesque harbour, especially on Thursday night as a calm sunny day descended into a pink sunset. The mood on the waterfront was joyous as Wellingtonians came together to experience this special moment. A moment of poignancy too as we reflected on the killing field that Wellington Harbour once was when whaling was in its heyday, and how we humans nearly hunted whales to extinction. It's thought that at one stage there was only one breeding female southern right left, and all today descend from her. Let's hope our visitor stays and brings friends!

Wellington can be a difficult and challenging city - this weekend is shaping up to be a good example - but moments like these make living here all worthwhile.

#WhyWellington #CantBeatWellingtonOnAGoodDay #NaturalCapital #Wellington #FreeWelly #kiwisforkiwi #zealandia

The hashtag #WhyWellington started as a marketing exercise but took on a life of its own as hundreds of Wellingtonians wanted to share with the world what makes our city so special. This week, Wellington gave us a reminder of why we choose to live here with a spectacular dusk and sunset. We started at Zealandia and then headed up Wrights Hill in Karori, where we were treated with fire and glory looking over Makara and ethereal pastel shades over Wellington City. The clouds looked painted on!  I've put together this slideshow so you can enjoy too.

#WhyWellington #CantBeatWellingtonOnAGoodDay #sunset #NaturalCapital #Wellington

​Aside from a good dose of curiousity and willingness to explore and try things out, I can recommend the following courses, software, and hardware to anyone keen on getting into photo-artistry.

ONLINE COURSES
​Anything and everything by Adobe Evangelist Julienne Kost (check whether your local library provides free access to her Lynda courses - Wellington Library does.)
http://www.jkost.com/photoshop.html
https://www.lynda.com/Julieanne-Kost/1059150-1.html 

Photoshop Artistry: Fine-art Grunge Composition with Sebastian Michaels
Teaching the fundamentals of photo-artistry with Photoshop and PS Elements
https://prophotoshopartistry.com/specialoffer

AWAKE - Living the (Photo)-Artistic Life with Sebastian Michaels
A year-long training program for photo artists - life-changing!
Enrollments open twice a year for students of his Fine-art Grunge Composition class. 
https://prophotoshopartistry.com/awake2018

Fine Art Photography with Brooke Shaden
Everything you need to know about creating fine art photos from the shoot, compositing, making prints, to running a fine-art business.
https://www.creativelive.com/class/fine-art-photography-the-complete-guide-brooke-shaden

SOFTWARE & HARDWARE
My essentials:

• Photoshop CC (although you can get a long way with PS Elements). Another free alternative that I haven't used is Gimp.
• Lightroom Classic (or Bridge), for organizing your assets. I don't recommend Lightroom CC unless you have an excellent internet connection with no data-cap and the funds to pay for GBs of online storage. Photoshop files are huge and you will also start acquiring thousands of image assets. Better to save locally and use a backup service instead.
• Wacom Intuos Pro drawing tablet.
• Calibrated monitor, especially if you're making prints.
• A grunty computer with a ton of disk and ram, especially if you want to make big images (though many people happily create on their iPad or smart phone).
• A camera - even your cellphone camera is good enough to get started with. I still occasionally use images taken on my very first digital camera - a 4 MP Nikon Coolpix 4500. Though I'm now glad to be shooting with full-frame mirrorless cameras.

Wouldn’t be without, but not essential:

• Topaz Labs Suite (especially ReMask, ReStyle, and Impression).
• On1 Perfect Resize for generating high-quality enlargements.
• DxO PhotoLab for industrial strength denoising.

Ask in the comments below if you have any questions about any of the above...

In anticipation of World Wetlands Day today (2 Feb), earlier in the week we added a visit to a wetland in and among our stops at various wineries around Martinborough. The wetland of choice was Carter Scenic Reserve, located in the back-blocks of Carterton. The nominal 30 minute walk stretched to an hour and a half, despite the blistering 30C heat, because it was a truly lovely and interesting spot. I hope you enjoy these photos and that they inspire you to visit one of your local wetlands.
http://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/wairarapa/places/carter-scenic-reserve/
#worldwetlandsday #artofbirding2018 #artofbirdingweek5

The reserve is a mix of wetland, grass and shrubland, and lowland forest. The trees of note are kāhikatea and tōtara, with many towering trunks, many dead, as water flow has changed in recent years killing off these stately trees, presumably due to surrounding land use. I can only speculate that there is a correlation between this change and the intensive irrigation seen in surrounding dairy farms. DOC, however, look like they're doing a fantastic job regenerating the area and propagating and planting many natives.

I'd like to offer up my method for managing my stash of textures, elements, overlays, and masks that I've acquired through courses like AWAKE, Kaizen, and from content I've purchased. It's a bit different to what Sebastian Michaels' suggests, but each to their own. It's a big decision to make, so considering various strategies allows you to make an informed decision before taking the plunge to get organized. This overview assumes you already know a bit about navigating your way round Lightroom Classic and how to import images.

Just considering textures alone - I have over 4000 textures after the AWAKE and KAIZEN courses, along with creating my own. Too many to search through if they were all in one folder. One option is to create folders for each type of texture: grunge, paint, black and white, cracks, urban, concrete… but that quickly makes for some hard decisions. How would you file this texture on the right? You certainly don't want to duplicate the image and put it into multiple folders!

Rather than fuss about which folder an image should be filed in, forget about filing entirely. Let Lightroom work for you instead, with keywords, searches, and smart collections. When you get a new content bundle, unzip each content package into a main folder for all your goodies. I usually let the folder be autonamed by the package name, which also makes it easier to trace back to the source (e.g., "2LO Artist 11", "FS_Cloudy_Day_background_"). Within my main folder, I also have separate folders for AWAKE, Kaizen, and my own content, but that doesn't really matter. Once the content is unzipped, import it into your Lightroom catalog. Then (and this is the only painful bit), keyword every image.

How to keyword
Ctrl-K or Cmd-K gets you to the Keywording panel quickly. Simply type in your keywords, separated by commas. As your collection of keywords builds up, Lightroom will autosuggest and autocomplete for you. For the above texture, I've tagged it as "fabric, cracked, watercolor, texture". I can then easily find it (and others) by simply searching for "texture fabric" or "texture watercolor", or whatever. It's up to you as to how detailed you get, but once keyworded, you will more likely be able to find your goodies in the future. Keyword all your photos too, not just your stash. Even if you have a big collection already, start like you mean to go on with new images and knock the rest off in 15 minute chunks each day till they're all done. It will save you more time in the long run as your images will be so much easier to find. I have over 45000 images in my collection, and they are finally all keyworded.

I did it! Challenge completed on 30 Dec 2017. Thanks to everyone who offered encouragement over the year, and especially to Janice who loaned me equipment at strategic points! Was it worth doing the weekly challenge? At various times, I wondered, but now that I've completed it I say absolutely! Was it hard? You betcha! It really brought home how different fields of photography require totally different skill sets. And that I still suck at bringing "story" to my images - mainly because it takes thought and effort and I don't always have the head-space to do that. But I also found that I love shooting still life and not just wildlife, and that taking people photos is not quite so scary anymore.

For 2018, I wanted to find a challenge with a more wildlife focus, in part so that more of my friends would perhaps join me (more fun with more than one!), but I couldn't find anything quite what I was after. So I decided to go all-in and put together my own challenge - for myself and for anyone else in the world who wishes to join me. The overall challenge is to use your wildlife and nature photos not just for pretty pictures, but for advocacy: by telling a (visual) story, creating compelling images, and improving on technical skills, then posting your images online for others to enjoy, be inspired by, and to learn from. You can start the challenge at any time, and do it at your own pace. You only have yourself to satisfy. Find out more at on the challenge webpage and join our private  Facebook group if you decide to take the challenge on. 

So without further ado, here are the photos for the last quarter of the 2017 Dogwood Challenge. If you're interested and inspired, they're doing a 2018 version. 

I am so glad I didn't take on a 365 challenge as I'm struggling (failing) to keep up with a weekly challenge. Rather than doing them weekly, I find I'm doing a bunch at a time or when an opportunity arises, rather than deliberately setting out to do a challenge each week. Throw in some procrastination and perfectionism, it's a recipe for dipping out before the challenge is completed. But I am determined to see this through though, and today did a big push to catch up with the third quarter, even if some aren't my best work. Will I get the last quarter done by the end of the year? Feel free to place your bets!

I love how the light from her screen makes her face glow.

From teeny-tiny fungi to crazy kākā, the 2018 Zealandia calendar is a cracker! The creating of the calendar is one of the biggest projects my volunteer Sanctuary Storytellers group at Zealandia undertakes. Every year it gets better and better, with gorgeous wildlife photography and compelling stories. And at $19.90, it makes the perfect stocking stuffer or secret Santa gift. You can get it from the Visitors Centre shop or order online.

Not only are there 13 months, but NZ holidays are marked along with significant wildlife and conservation days. And every cent made goes back into conservation.

A true team effort with photos, writing, research, and editing from: myself, Vanya Bootham, Rosemary Cole, Brendon Doran, Lynn Freeman, Chris Gee, Chris Helliwell, Eeva-Katri Kumpula, Hayley May, Janice McKenna, Linton Miller, Ali McDonald, and Louise Slocombe.

Enjoy!

"Orbell" - one of the new takahē at Zealandia - is now visible to the public if you keep your eyes and ears turned on. Binoculars help too! Orbell's partner, "Nio", remains elusive, but if you listen, you can sometimes hear them calling to one another. This morning we hoped to get lucky and get some of the first "public" photos (i.e., photos from public tracks and without needing privileged access) of the new, blue, dynamic duo.

It's taken me this long to complete the second quarter of the Dogwood 2017 weekly photography challenge because I struggled to get Week 14 Panning completed. Panning is hard! So without further ado, here are the results....

​This challenge has been "dogging" me for weeks, so what better subject to choose than a doggo. Must be the slowest pan ever done, but it's done!

With more rain forecast, we headed out this morning to Zealandia to get a quick walk in and see if anything interesting was happening.