Happy new year!

Welcome to 2008! Just wanted to know everyone were alive... We have been busy preparing for the next leg of our trip, to China! Not quite sure what to expect! Definitely looking forward to having authentic Chinese food though! :)

Here in New Zealand were something like 18 hours ahead of PST in America, so we had New Years last night in Christchurch. The fireworks were fun, and there were people everywhere!

I've got lots of photo editing to do soon, so hopefully I'll be able to get some photos up soon...

An email just came in from my mom, guess she crashed her car in the snow! She didn't explain at all though... what happened mom!?




see ya!

crazy adventures...

Bethany just did a super fun post on her blog about some recent adventures...
I obviously can't keep up like she can, so just check out her post here-

http://bandbtravels.blogspot.com/

I love this shot the NZONE photographer got of Bethany jumping out of the plane when we went skydiving, her face pretty much sums up how it feels! She thinks she looks like a dork, but the 200km/h wind has a way of deforming your face, haha.

Check it out!

Any explanation needed? :)

Castlepoint Lighthouse, Wairarapa Coast, New Zealand

So sorry for the lack of posting here, we've been keeping busy. I have a ton to catch up on... not sure if it will ever happen, at least during this trip!

New Zealand has been a great experience so far. We've met some great people that have befriended us, let us stay with them (more on that later), and the landscape here is beautiful. But unfortunately we've have some bad luck with the weather. We seem to be following the rain around everywhere. I love rain, but for photography, it pretty dull and boring. The first week we were here, I think we shot only about 15 photos between the two of us!

The past 2 days have been quite the opposite though, we've been shooting like crazy! :) A couchsurfing friend (more on that later) recommended we go out to a place called Castlepoint, which is on the South Eastern side of the North Island of New Zealand. Man, this place was incredible! After we spent one afternoon there, we actually changed our ferry ticket for a day later so that we could go back and shoot it all over again. We are so glad we did.

These are a few photos that I had a chance to edit late a couple nights ago. I haven't even looked at my photos from the second day yet! On the second day, Bethany and I climbed up that big "half dome" looking rock in the background. It was incredible up there.

My favorites were when the sun went down, and it was almost dark!

Great Barrier Reef - Detail

Bethany and I got to scuba dive on the Great Barrier Reef for a day, it was pretty incredible. So much life and so many different creatures. I took about 500 photos in the underwater housing, but this is the only one that I have to show for now!

It is some sort of really cool rock with all these things growing on it. Not sure what they are... but the light was hitting it just right to make a nice photo.

Australian sky at night

Even though were in New Zealand now, I'll probably continue to post stuff from Australia, because I have an endless amount of photos to catch up on. I'll post this one now, just because there is something I like about it... not sure what. It was totally dark out, but the sky over the horizon still had tiny amounts of light left in it. This exposure was about 10 minutes long, which I had to do to get any exposure in the image.

Somewhere in the middle of the outback-

New Zealand!

We just landed in New Zealand... and the 30 minutes we've been here have already been awesome. :)
The Kiwis have already given us free coffee, tea, Jack Daniels, hats... these people are awesome!

I have a lot to catch up on from Australia still... so stay tuned!