Kiwis in New Zealand

Near the North Island of New Zealand, white island is privately owned and still has sulfur spewing up from the volcano there. When asked why the guy who owns it bought the island, he said he just thought it would be neat to own a volcano. The other geysers are from a geo thermal reserve near Tauranga, New Zealand in a town called Rotarua (Roto Ruwa.) You can practically see the sulfur stink can’t you?

The last photo is of the infamous Kiwi bird. Kiwis are nocturnal and their habitats are created with very very low light, which is why the photo looks kinda like a blob with a pencil beak, but take my word for it, that’s a kiwi.

Katie

Glow Worms

When I was a kid, I had a little toy glow worm that glowed in the dark. I always thought it was the coolest toy, but I never imagined the real thing might actually exist, or that I’d have a chance to see it one day. Glow worms are found only in Australia and New Zealand. They are translucent and it’s actually their poop that glows. Bugs are attracted to the tiny luminescent dots in the dark caves that the worms life in. The bugs fly to toward the light and get caught in the worm’s sticky lines that they hang around them.

The worms are very sensitive to light and sound so only our guides had lanterns to take us through the caves. We weren’t supposed to take any photos, but of course I had to sneak a few. I had my flash off and I waited until the guide was talking so no one heard the click on my camera. When they had all the lights off it just looked like a million tiny blue stars around us. The shots I took are from waist level looking straight up. The last photo looks kind of wormy, but it’s actually just me moving the camera during a 30 second exposure. The worms themselves are long and clear and there’s a dot of light they emit at the tail end. This was an amazing sight to see.

Katie

Christchurch, New Zealand

I was able to do my first tour in Christchurch, New Zealand. I was so lucky to have this tour in particular because it went by a location where they shot Narnia. For the first half of this tour I went on a long ride out of Christchurch up into the mountains. I went on an off-road adventure on winding dirt roads to some amazing vistas. Next the site of the chronicles of Narnia shoot.

Katie

Christmas and New Years

Christmas and New Years on the ship was great. There’s always a nice dinner for the staff upstairs on Christmas day. I had shrimp and steak with plumb pudding for dessert. The shore excursions manager brought party popper things with paper hats and little toys. It felt like a very British Christmas.

Then New Years Eve was one wild party all over the ship. I got pictures with Gene, my friend from my past two ships, and Sydney who I just met this contract. Gene is very short, so I had to squat down, since I was in heels and towering at about 6’2” Sydney is around my height, she’s the one I’m not crouching next to. All the crew were decked out in their finest partying until the wee hours of the morning. I called it quits around 2am, but I was told the party didn’t stop till 5.

Katie

Dry Dock is Done

I’ve been supremely busy this cruise. It seems to me that dry dock caused more problems than solutions. Certainly it needed to happen, but when the contractors left and all the water and power was turned on around the ship, there was chaos. Pipes burst, rooms flooded, lights and sound didn’t work, and who was left to clean up? That’s right your faithful crew who also had to prepare to take on an overbooked ship of passengers on their Christmas cruise in a matter of hours. Needless to say, the ship wasn’t ready. We had a really rough start to this cruise, and now almost two weeks later, when the cruise is nearly finished, we are finally starting to get everything back to the way it should have been from the beginning.

After doing five days of work alone, my assistant arrived. He’s Filipino and his name is Edmark. I’m told that traditionally in the Philippines parents will give their children a mix of their two names, like Edna and Marcus make up Edmark. He’s proved to be a great assistant. He had to jump right in and start work having come from a short vacation and from a completely different department, he was food and beverage before, luckily he was equal to the task. He’s nice and sweet, a little shy, and I think I’ve finally convinced him to stop calling me Ma’am. Made me feel like a school teacher.

Here are shots from the last day of dry dock when they put the propellers on our ship again. They are massive and so cool looking. They are the only part of the outside of the ship that isn’t painted over. They had one wrapped in plastic because they were painting the hull of the ship. I took another picture of the front of the ship because there happened to be two dock workers having a cigarette break below. I did a really long exposure so they are kinda blurred, but that little white blob on the ground next to the ship is two people.

Katie

Dry Dock

Uncle Todd requested photos of the dry dock, and I’m not one to disappoint. Not that I’m that great of a thing photographer, but a big old ship out of water is a cool looking thing. They were working on the props when I took these so that’s why you can’t see any propellers in the back. If I get the chance, I’m going to go out again and shoot the back end with the propellers on.

Only a few days to go and we’ll be out to sea again. I’ve been working like crazy trying to get everything ready, I have no assistant at the moment and I just found out he won’t be joining until five days into the Christmas Cruise. It’s terrible to have to work alone on a ship at all, let alone over a Christmas cruise (they’re the worst.) You have a ship full of people who want the perfect family holiday served to them on a platter, and I don’t care how shiny the silver platter is, nothing is perfect.

Luckily I can stay out of the lime light for the most part. I’ll be busy, but I’m still going to make time to do the international choir, and I’m sure there will be a great dinner Christmas night. I’m going to say Merry Christmas and Happy New Years now because I probably won’t be able to in the middle of the holidays. Have a good time, eat, drink and be merry and I’ll talk to you again in the new year.

Katie

Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary

Brisbane, Australia, where we are in dry dock, is North of Sydney. I have had the chance to get off a couple of times. One night I went out to get some supplies and have a few drinks in an Irish pub with some of the crew. Another time I went out for the day to the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary. I got to hold a Koala Bear and I got up close and personal with wild lorikeets. The bird picture hasn’t been color enhanced, that’s how vibrant the lorikeets were.

The sanctuary has 130 koalas that are all kept in open enclosures with fresh eucalyptus leaves for them to munch on. Koalas are nocturnal so most of them were sleeping or looked very sleepy. They are a little freaky looking when they’re awake cuz their eyes are all red, but when they’re sleeping they’re sooo cute. They just sit on a branch and ball themselves up. They kind of remind me of Muppets. The sanctuary had lots of other animals including kangaroos you could feed.

Katie

Flashes of Hope Shoot

The American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) in North Carolina has been working with a non-profit orginization called Flashes of hope to go to hospitals and take potraits of kids with cancer and other life threatening illnesses. I went with Michael Mauney to one of these shoots.

The experience was draining and uplifting at the same time. They had people there to do hair and make-up for the kids and thier families. Michael and I took turns shooting, so that we had time to look at what we shot while the other was working, since most of the kids tired quickly.

One of the best smiles I got was of a little boy with his brother. The boy was grumpy and didn't want to smile or be touched by his brother. Michael asked the boy to stand off camera and makes faces at his brother, while Michael took pictures of his brother alone. This got the boy laughing and I managed to grab a shot of him mid-laugh away from the background. Of course the minute he stepped back up to stand with his brother he went serious again.

My favorite kid of the day was the one who didn't want his photo taken. He was a teenager who did motorcross and he was only there because his mom wanted a photo taken with him. I didn't shoot any pictures of him because I didn't want to subject him to any more photos than was nesicary, but I did manage to get a small smile or two out of him when I asked him about racing. This assignment was at times difficult, but above all rewarding.

Katie