New Zealand-scapes I captured these lovely landscapes when I visited New Zealand to present my paper at an international conference. In fact visit to this place was my main motivation to write and submit my paper ;-) ! These lovely landscapes are in and around one and the same city of Christchurch which is in the South Island of NZ. It was amazing to see the ever changing landscapes. The whole country is filled with such sensational sights of nature. Click on the images to view the larger version. Copyright © Meenakshi Madhur RK comments : Amazing country- so much beauty everywhere and your images are able to capture it all very well. Erm.. one tiny tip: keep the horizon level. Meenakshi Madhur comments : Thank you, Sir :) for the tip ! Ambika Bhatt comments : Lovely photographs Meenakshi, I liked the last one the most! Lucky you who got to visit such beautiful places! A suggestion, when photographing landscapes try and put something in the foreground, maybe flowers or weeds, they add more interest to the photograph and add depth. Meenakshi Madhur comments : Thanks Ambika ! Nice to hear from u after a long time ! And thanks also for the tip. When can we get to see the pictures from ur camera ? How about a view of the marine drive or any pic of the mumbai sea ? It has been so long since I saw any of them. Will be nice to see how are they doing today ? MM Shabnam comments : Meenakshi, Beautiful pics. specially the last one. Ambika Bhatt comments : HI Meenakshi! My scanner is not working! I have so much to share with all of you! Wait some more time! Meenakshi Madhur comments : Thanks Shabnam :)! OK...let me share with u how that last picture came about! we were on this beautiful country drive towards a village near Christchurch city. i was going 'ooh ! aah!' throughout the drive looking at the sight on our way and requested for a brief stop over so that i could capture some lovely sights. We stopped over on this road that went over the hills and the view down from the hill was amazing. but i knew my short 155 cm height wasnt capturing the view of the valley so well and i wished i was a wee bit taller. Then i found a big rock near by, i climbed on it and held my camera on top of my head and clicked without even looking into it. i was confident that whatever the camera captured would be nice and it was ! Ambika, that also explains the missing foreground :) I hope some angels come and fix ur scanner sooner than u think ! Ambika Bhatt comments : Meenakshi, must say... very very ingenious! I never heard anyone take a shot like that! RK comments : Ambika, this method was pretty common with press photographers in the sixties when Rolleis (a famous brand of Twin lens reflexes) ruled the world. If you see any of the shots of the rich and famous in those days, in the background, you'll see all those photographers, hands outstretched with cameras overhead! This is because the Rollei (as do all TLR's and waist level viewing SLR's) have a ground glass focussing screen which makes such photography pretty simple as the image is in view all the time. Ambika Bhatt comments : RK... I know! I have seen those twin lens reflex cams... but try the same method with one of the latest SLRs! It may be fun actually, coz u'd never know what u get!! But I think even now I see some press people just holding up their cams and clicking away... guess they do have an idea of what they'd get... and its so crowded in some conferences that maybe they have no time to look thro the lens and compose. Press photography is all about timing I think and not so much about composition and exposure!