Mark Pilbeam, aged 70 lives with his wife of 47 years, near Stratford-on-Avon in England and plays at photography when he has time. This is at least what he says about himself. I think he is too humble, since I saw his photographs and liked many of them. He agreed to share a short story of his trips to New Zealand. You can see a few of Mark’s photos at the end of this article.
Greg.

My wife and I, both in our late 60s, toured the South Island in December 2006 and January 2007. Our son, who lived in Christchurch at the time, drove us and, although we didn’t get as far south as the Fiords, we did a fairly extensive tour, plus we spent quite a bit of time in Christchurch.

We went more or less where the spirit moved us but I was always conscious that my wife and son, neither of them interested in photography, would have become bored and frustrated if I had stopped for every shot I saw; I quickly formed the idea that I needed to be on a motorcycle and alone to do such an expedition justice.

All that said, New Zealand is so spectacularly beautiful that it’s difficult to make bad photographs.

Quite a few of my photographs are untitled since they weren’t intended for anything more than my own selfish amusement. i.e. I was on holiday, not working.

We stayed in the North Island during February and March of 2008, based in Napier, and I took a few more photographs there, although I was ill for much of the time so we didn’t tour as extensively as we would have wished.

All-in-all then, NZ is a photographer’s and naturalists paradise and I would recommend anyone to visit.

Click on the thumbnails to view larger photographs.

If you liked Mark’s photos, you can see more of them at his Flickr page

Related posts:

1. Lindsay McLeod – Photographer from Dunedin
2. New Zealand Photography Review