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The Best of '18

My Favorite images of 2018, not technically perfect, but each has a story greater than the image itself...

By Blackaptur Photography

January 10^th, 2019

The Justice Precinct

This is a shot I had envisioned during the construction of the building - I had to wait for around 8 months after it was finished for other road works to be completed before I could get the shot...

a unique perspective

2018 saw the purchase of the ground-breaking DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone - with its 20mp 1-Inch sensor and colour profiling manufactured by the legendary Swedish camera stalwart - Hasselblad - it offers uncompromised image quality with unique and fresh perspectives that only a eye in the sky can achieve, winning over the team at ChristchurchNZ for their 2019 Facebook cover photo

lego

my inner OCD still gets annoyed that this isn't perfectly straight down but you cant have everything perfect I suppose....

2018 Evil Insurgent 27.5

Bike of the day on Pinkbike - but my first foray really into artificial lighting, and really about the only attempt I am happy with - and its a bike, which helps. A lot. Continuously bugged by the beginners mistake I made with the aperture in this shot, if you look closely you will notice that due to my shallow depth of field the front end of the bike is actually out of focus - but nevertheless still a favorite.

hidden trails

Shot on a shoot I did for Yeti NZ// Back Alley Bikes - on a demo day in the Port Hills - .....80% of this image is the editing - the original was nothing much - and for some reason the out of camera RAW file had some strange colours in it - some time, and some colour grading later it soon looked like Christchurch mid-summer and had a vibe of its own.

Similar amount of processing to the image above - but this time a extremely unique subject, and something very rarely seen in the Port Hills of Christchurch...

family of three

Comprised of 70% fluke and 30% failed whistles on my behalf I didn't realize I had even taken this shot till going through these images a few hours later... and now is a popular image on Adobe Stock

all-time

definitely one of my all-time favorites this image, and reminds me of a "From Where You'd Rather Be" Corona Ad - it depicts so many things with all the right elements in a minimalist and unique style, the setting sun reflecting on the lens creating the silhouette of glowing gold

shag(ged) rock

if you are a Christchurch Local you'll know the back story.....

Tyler Brooker against a backdrop of leafy green

Josh Birkenhake getting flat for the camera at the 2018 Bowenvale Summer Jam

the rule of (no) thirds

Quite literally one of those stories when a completely accidental image turns out to be one of your most popular - POD on both PinkBike and VitalMTB for this one

same day, same rider (feat. rays)

Joe Nation (Now riding for Pole Bicycles Enduro Team) shredding on his S-Works Enduro 29 and also creating an image that Specialized NZ have used a couple of times

same rays, different rider

Milty Coultas, clever trail builder and a newly minted Giant Bikes NZ and EVO Cycles NZ ambassador gets sideways on Airtearoa at the Christchurch Adventure Park

the push back up

I'm sure every mountain bike rider must hate photographers, ....please just do the run one more time, this time, tweak off here a little....

you know one of those days

100% thanks to the Nature and its awe-inspiring beauty - a lot of my best images were taken on this day

including a sale of the far right image to Chippewa Boots... the day was certainly a stunner

perfect wave

shot at an undisclosed location, and probably the best (and most interesting!) wave I have ever shot...

drawing to a close

I thought I would round things up with yet another photogenic mountain lake - Lake Heron is one of the best and certainly turns it on more often than not...!