By David Barnes-Mackenzie.
In September 2015, I travelled to New Zealand to photograph the Mackenzie Country, Central Otago, in the South Island, with my father.
The trip was inspired by the beautiful paintings of Dad’s friend since childhood, Graham Tait. I wanted to see (and hopefully capture) the extraordinary, clear blue skies and warm brown tussock landscapes of Central Otago. Somewhat unexpectedly though, the landscape turned out to also be a wonderful canvas of texture and light, and this B&W conversion is one of my favourites from the trip.
Mackenzie Textures. By David Barnes-Mackenzie
Panasonic DMC-GX7; Lumiz G Vario 12-35mm; 2.8 @ 12mm; 1/60s @ f/5.0; ISO 320
B&W conversion in Adobe Lightroom CC
Don’s response
It’s easy to see why this image is one of photographer David Barnes-Mackenzie’s favourites.
I think the decision to give the foreground pride of place was a good one. The fine textural details cue the brain to imagine that the entire picture is tack sharp. But cover the foreground and you’ll notice that, if anything, the rest of image is ever so slightly soft.
And yet it doesn’t matter at all, because taken as a whole the image has such a delightfully crisp quality that you can almost smell the tussock grass and feel the brisk breeze.
