The Testshot by gbphotography

Back in June I had the pleasure to travel for the first time to New Zealand and explore the beauty of this marvelous country. The whole trip was rather planned as a casual holiday with my wife, there was no pre-planned itinerary and so it came that we arrived in Wanaka one evening to stay for a couple of days. We arrived just at sunset, so without any knowledge of the place I sat at the shore and watched the sun disappear behind the mountains. After we had found some accommodation, I was trawling the internet to see 'what you photograph in Wanaka' - yes, I had no idea about that 'famous Wanaka tree', which seemed to appear in almost every image in Wanaka!! So that night I spoke to the owner of the hotel 'where's that tree that you see in every image?' with the intention for an early sunrise shoot. He pointed on a map to the southern corner of Roys Bay of Lake Wanaka - so yep great - all set for the next morning. So I got up early, jumped in the car, drove along the road along the shoreline (Ardmore St) stopping at half a dozen carparks in search of that tree!! Although the tree is not far from the shoreline, it is still similar to the search for the needle in the haystack if you have only a headlamp and a rough idea of where it is. Finally I found it and was scrambling to find some good compositions, firing tests shots with a race against some great morning light. I came pretty disappointed from that morning's shoot, as I like to be prepared and I felt I hadn't achieved a good image composition. I felt I needed to get closer to the tree, but the water level in the lake was very high. So I decided to try again for sunset - I went to the local hunting shop, rented some waders for the day and was ready to go. Unfortunately, the sunset was a grey cloud non-event with the next sunrise being completely rained in. All I have is this test shot, so the Wanaka tree is a certain stop for my next trip to New Zealand. Please visit my website www.guidobrandt.com for prints. via 500px http://ift.tt/1qomQR8