Pitch Black Driving home tonight, I could see just the barest hint of a red glow against the night sky. Intrigued I decided to stop at a nearby pond and set up the camera to see what it really looked like... 1/2 #Twilight #Night #Landscape #LongExposure #Sunset #Scape #EastCoastKin #Photography

A Southern Sunset A steamy evening on the southern coast, dilute light filtering in through far-off haze. - #Southland, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Summer #Sunset #GoldenHour #Landscape #Photography #EastCoastKin #Scape

Lake Ohau Sunset A nice calm evening at the lake. - Lake #Ohau, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunset #Panorama #Landscape #Photography #Art #EastCoastKin #PureNZ #Twizel #Travel #Bucketlist

Like a Great Bird High, she flew... High. Far above us with wings outstretched and feathers of flame! And vast - So vast her wings encompassed the sky. Ah, but I see you do not believe, young one... #Sunset #EastCoastKin #Photography #Landscape #Art #Bucketlist #Travel #DoYouSeeWhatISee

Pelennor Gold The galloping hoofbeats have long gone silent on this field, but if one knows where to look, one may still find some Kingsfoil, growing down by the creek. - #Twizel, #NewZealand. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunset #Summer #FilmLocations #LOTR #EastCoastKin #Travel

A Certain Glow There's a certain glow the deep sky gets on the hot days here. The air shimmers in molten memory, as if unwilling to relinquish the day. - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunset #Summer #Stunday #EastCoastKin #Shimmer #PureNZ

The Night is Darkest Shooting straight into the rising sun gave me this really dark and kinda grungy shot. I quite like the feeling of disquiet that it gives me. - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul. #Sunrise #Landscape #Photography #Scape #Stunday #Grunge #Art

Stillness and Glory Calm upon the water, fire in the sky, and all around, the near-deafening music of the dawn chorus. - #Twizel , #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunrise #Dawn #Landscape #Photography #Art #EastCoastKin #Scape #Travel #PureNZ #Clouds #Bucketlist

First Light of the First Day 2026 opened with beautiful colours, a still morning, and air thick with birdsong. Yeah. It'll do. As portents go, it'll do nicely. - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #NewYears2025 #Sunrise #EastCoastKin #Photography #Scape

Happy New Year! This is "Eclipsing Ben Ohau" I can't think of a better way to end the 2025 recap than this one - Moonset and another night ends, appropriate for the Dec 31st post. #NewYears #BestShots #Eclipse #Moonset #Landscape #Photography #EastCoastKin #NewZealand #NewYears2025

Wings of Fire and Shadow It seems appropriate that the penultimate image for this year is this - a great Phoenix aflame, to fade to ashes with the diminishing sun, awaiting a new dawn, and a new year. #Twizel, #NewZealand #Phoenix #Sunset #Rebirth #EastCoastKin #Photography #Landscape #Scape

Haymaker Won't be long until this scene rolls around again - though with fresh snow on the tops, we could do with some better weather! - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunset #Harvest #Summer #BestShots #Christmas #EastCoastKin #Landscape #Photography #Art

Blood Orange I was lucky enough to catch 2 eclipses this year. This is a shot from the second and probably the best totality I've captured. - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Eclipse #BloodMoon #Totality #Astro #EastCoastKin #Stunday #Moon

Sunset Colours One thing I really like about the summer equinox is how we get these long, slow sunsets, full of gradients and colours. - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunset #Canal #EastCoastKin #Stunday #Summer

Dunmannifestin This is a fave because I'm digging the mirrored movement of heavenly aurora and swirling mists. - #Twizel, #NewZealand. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Aurora #Lake #BestOf #EastCoastKin #Nightscape #Landscape #Bucketlist #PureNZ #Scape

Meri Kirihimete The Dark Sky Reserve folks chose this image of mine as their Christmas post. :) It's a fave, so I am very pleased they liked it too! -- #Twizel, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #MerryChristmas #Aurora #DaskSkyReserve #Nightscape #Landscape #scape

Highway to the Stars Meri Kirihimete! Wishing you and yours a Happy Holidays - and in 2026 may your Highway reach to the stars! - Twizel, New Zealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #MerryChristmas #HappyHolidays #Astro #BestShots #EastCoastKin #Stars #Landscape #Nightphotography

Nebula The second pic is the night of the Blood Moon. High cloud created an intriguing and unique scene. This night turned into something quite special - it turned into my first book! - #BloodMoon #Eclipse, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #EastCoastKin #FullMoon #BestOf

Elephants in Grey Probably my favourite photographic expedition of the year was all the way back in March. A trip to capture the limestone formations under a full moon turned into something quite extraordinary. 1/2 #MonoMonday #ElephantRocks #Roadtrip #Landscape #EastCoastKin #Exploring

Gnome's Rest This is my favourite part of the photo-posting year - Where I spend a few days revisiting my personal favourites from the last year. For this , I was looking for an iconic Toadstool, and it took an hour to find. - #Twizel, #NewZealand - #EastCoastKin #Stunday #Toadstool #Gnome #Home

Rowers on Rua Some late rowers out for a practice on the lake. -- #Twizel, #NewZealand. -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul" #Rowing #Sunset #LakeRuataniwha #scape #Stunday #EastCoastKin #PureNZ

Bourbon Street Midwinter in New Orleans, and a big tick off my bucket list. I like the Bar called Prohibition, since the only prohibitions I noticed were inhibitions! - #NewOrleans, for #FornPartsFridays. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul" #Scape #EastCoastKin #Night #City #Roadtrip

Pastel Aurora Delicate pastels paint the sky in pinks and blues and purples, while I sit on the canal bank admiring the splendour of Mother Nature. - #Twizel, #NewZealand. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Aurora #Night #Scape #Steve #Landscape #Pastels #EastCoastKin #Bucketlist #Epic

The Colours of the Night A lovely, lively display of dancing beams on winter's night, not long ago. -- #Twizel, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Aurora #SouthernLights #Nightscape #AllTheColours #EastCoastKin #Landscape #Photography #Astro #Wednesday #Bucketlist #PureNZ

Mother Nature's Christmas Lights While actually captured in April, the scene reminds me of the lights of the season... and that I really need to get around to putting mine up! 1/2 #Aurora #PacificOcean #Nightscape #SouthernLights #Seascape #EastCoastKin #TravelTuesday #Landscape #Photography

Blue Moon Aurora I was talking to someone about previous Solar Cycles, and it reminded me of this night from 2015. A full moon rose and completely washed out the reds and greens of the aurora with the bright blue of a daytime sky, while streetlights colour the waves. 1/2 #Aurora #BlueSkyMonday

Any Port in a Storm When the storm is so full on that a mere 6 seconds is bordering on over-exposing the image! So bright. Soooo bright. - #Twizel, #NewZealand. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Aurora #Night #Stunday #Scape #EastCoastKin #Landscape #Nightscape #Bucketlist #Travel

The Lights of Pelennor Fields One of my favourite locations is just up the road from home, one of the filming locations for #LOTR. Lights! Action! uhh... Camera! - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Aurora #Night #Landscape #Stunday #EastCoastKin #BucketList

Bright, Brisk, Bryce The dawn after a blizzard in Bryce Canyon and everything is pristine and beautiful and still. -- #Bryce Canyon, #USA for #FornPartsFridays -- "Look with your Eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunrise #Snow #Roadtrip #EastCoastKin #Scape #TravelPics #Landscape #Photography #Epic

Little Green Canal One of those scenes that has the car screeching to a halt, crazed photographer grabbing bits and pieces in a mad dash to capture the moment before it twists away and is gone. - Twizel, New Zealand - #Aurora #SouthernLights #Nightscape #EastCoastKin #Scape #bucketlist #BestWork

The All Seeing Eye This is my favourite image from that special night, of the thousands of exposures I took. The Coronal Aurora absolutely going OFF! Still gives me thrills! - #Twizel, #NewZealand. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul" #Aurora #Night (really!) #Corona #Awesome #EastCoastKin

Whoosh! - Weird! I posted this 2 days ago, and the text remains, but the image vanished. So here it is again! And, this was just before it went crazy! Not sure if you can see, but there are 3 or 4 horizontal bars in the middle of the "jet" for want of a better word. #Aurora #EastCoastKin #Epic

You call that a Whoosh? That's not a Whoosh. THIS is a whoosh. (And if you didn't see yesterday's post, this will make very little sense!) -- #Twizel, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Aurora #Night #EastCoastKin #nightsky #astrophotography #Landscape #BrucketList #Epic

Whoosh! And, this was just before it went crazy! Not sure if you can see, but there are 3 or 4 horizontal bars in the middle of the "jet" for want of a better word. They were pulsing upwards, and gone by the next frame. "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Twizel #Aurora #EastCoastKin

Milky Way and Aurora over Ruataniwha A smaller aurora over Lake Ruataniwha. Just giving it a little Glow-Up to make it pretty. -- #Twizel #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with Soul." #Aurora #Galaxy #Astrophotograph #Nightscape #Landscape #EastCoastKin #Stunday #Bucketlist #PureNZ #Epic

An Aurora Framed I planned for this shot to have a nice wee shape, with dark skies across the top. The trouble with Aurora though, they don't listen! So much bigger and more intense than expected! - #Twizel, #NewZealand - #Aurora #Night #EastCoastKin #Stunday #Scape #BucketList #Travel #Epic

Railway tracks You know.. I'm a country boy. My home is the mountains, not the city. So while visiting an urban friend, they showed me this old tunnel, and claimed these were railway tracks. 1/2 #Railway #FornPartsFridays #Aussie #Tracks #EastCoastKin #Scape #OnTheRods #roadtrip #travel

The Wall of Light The Flat Earthers are wrong. At the Edge of the World, there's no sudden drop, or barrier of Ice. There's the Wall. Pulsating, Twisting. Blinding. Heaven help the Mortal who dares approach, for there is no return. #Twizel, #NZ #Aurora #FlatEarth #EastCoastKin #Scape #TheEdge

The Mark of Zorro A flaming letter Z carved into the sky, calling to action those who would protect the oppressed against an unjust tyrant! ... Or maybe it's just pretty lights 🙂 - #Twizel, #NewZealand - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." ( 11 May 24) #aurora #Night #EastCoastKin #Travel

Madness "We're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it" - Robin Williams - #Twizel, #NewZealand. - "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." (from the big storm of 11 May, 24) #Aurora #Madness #Reflections #Landscape #Nightscape #Astro #EastCoastKin #BucketList #TravelTuesday

But Soft, What Light Over Yonder Breaks? 'Tis Juliet, she's got a terrible case of gone-green! ** -- #Twizel, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." ** I regret nothing! :P #Aurora #Twizel #Pelinor #OnLocation #MountainMonday #EastCoastKin #EverythingBut #BlueskyMonday

A Lenticular Formation A lot of people asked about yesterday's photo of the lenticulars and the anticrepuscular ray so I thought I'd share this close up of them. Lenticulars are my favourite clouds :) -- #Twizel, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul" #Stunday #EastCoastKin

Anticrepuscular Phasers Here's a shot of something I've never captured before. Anticrepuscular rays from a full moon. The light slipped between two huge lenticular clouds, created a stunning and most unusual sight. -- #Landscape #FullMoon #Lenticular #Rays #Phasers #EastCoastKin #Stunday #Night

PssPssPss This week's Forn Parts Friday is a throwback to this very special kitty I met in Yosemite. Who did not get scritches, despite so clearly needing pats! -- #Yosemite, #USA -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Kitty #Wildlife #VeryLongLens #Bobcat #Photography #EastCoastKin

The Lady Sings The Blues Well I'm a lucky fella Lady's singin' a capella A jazzy tune to dance the night away With reds, and blues and greens she sings exquisite scenes, She lights the world up bright as it were day 1/2 #Aurora #Dancing #Lights #Poetry #EastCoastKin #Bucketlist #Night #Scape

Candyfloss Campgrounds A fine evening to be sitting outside the camper by the lake, watching the clouds. I hope they all were! -- #LakePukaki, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul." #Sunset #Aoraki #Camping #PureNZ #EastCoastKin #Travel #Bucketlist #Landscape #Photography #Epic

Just a few of the calendar packages we posted off to their new homes! Always excited to share my photography with folks, and delighted so many of you were excited about our inaugural calendar. Place an order today: www.ianriddler.com/2026-calendar

A Sky Ablaze -- #Twizel, #NewZealand -- "Look with your eyes. See with your Soul" #Sunset #Cloudscape #Landscape #Canal #Flame #Travel #Tourism #PureNz #EastCoastKin #AcarnumAlumni #Skyfire

Our inaugural Ian Riddler Photography Calendar (2026) has arrived! Look at these beautiful photographs - that you helped us choose! DM us to place an order for yours - $30 + Shipping (in most locations).

Big Sky I was chatting yesterday with a follower about the big skies we get here, and today this image came up in the FB memories, from 11 years ago today. I thought you'd like to see it. :) Big skies indeed. -- #Twizel, #NewZealand. -- #Clouds #EastCoastKin #Landscape #Photography #Bucketlist