VOLCANIC ASH STRIKES AGAIN…

The Chile volcano is continuing to spew ash into the atmosphere and disrupt air travel and last night my flight home from New Zealand that was scheduled to leave this morning was cancelled by Virgin (yet again). I seem to be somewhat magnetic to volcanic eruptions. First it was Iceland last year and now New Zealand on the way in and out of the country. Two of my friends are now saying that you don’t need to ask if a volcano is going to erupt; just ask “Is Josh flying soon?”

Thankfully it appears as though Air New Zealand are again going to come to the rescue and after more phone calls I have been able to secure a ticket home at crack of dawn Sunday morning. Why Air New Zealand can fly and everyone else can’t makes little sense – very frustrating.

It has been a whirlwind trip and I feel like I have crammed in a huge amount of photography all over the island into a very short period of time. The weather and light has been a real mixed bag with everything from patches of brilliant sunshine to torrential rain; and just about everything in between. In point of fact, the weather has been remarkably warm for this time of year and as yet there is still no fresh snow (there are some really grumpy looking skiers around the place at the moment). In terms of light it has not been great; although there was some good sunrise and sunset light yesterday (the best of the trip). Most of the time the skies have been quite overcast at both sunrise and sunset which has lead to very grey and drab light – ce’st la vie.

Rather than sit around in my hotel room I have been invited out to go shooting today with a fellow local photographer who is also accompanying me to Antarctica in November this year. We went out shooting last night near Port Levy and had some wonderful sunset light. The volcanic ash particles in the air reflect the light beautifully and seem to extend sunset for what seems much longer than normal. Last night’s sunset was definitely the best light of the trip so far.

I returned my Maui camper van yesterday on my return to Christchurch. I did just over 2,500 kilometres in seven days and have shot just over 2300 frames – so I have a lot of sorting, editing and processing to do when I get back to Melbourne; which hopefully is tomorrow morning…