Bob Zuur - Recent projects

This section provides some examples of the range of my photography

2024 Kapiti Coast Arts Trail

Here are some photos displayed and available for purchase at the Kapiti Coast Arts Trail, starting 2-3 November 2024.

I print my photos on a Canon Pro-1000, 12 pigment ink printer, on quality Ilford Gallerie fine art papers. My favourite is Fine Art Smooth, but where I need vibrant colour and deep blacks, I use Smooth Pearl. Most of the photos are A2 in size, but a few are wider and some are A3.

Some photos are presented in bevelled mats - these should be framed. Other photos are mounted on MDF board, covered in two layers of primer undercoat, with routered edges painted in matte black paint. The prints are mounted using Scotch PMA 568 pressure sensitive adhesive and protected by 2 or 3 coats of Hahnemuhle protective spray.

Kapiti paddler - The end of a beautiful day as a paddler hauls their kayak out of the water and gentle waves ripple over the shore

Sunset in Paradise. A bank of clouds hovered over Paekakariki allowing the golden light to stream in. Low tide provided a nice reflection.

Golden beams over Kapiti. View from the top of Mt Wainui, behind Paekakariki

View from Kime. A unique view of the Hutt Valley, Wellington and its harbour and Tapuae-o-Uenuku and Manakau in the South Island.

Kapiti evening vista #1. A glorious view northwards towards Mt Ruapehu, as Kapiti settles down for the evening

Kapiti evening vista #2. A wider panorama of the previous photo

Paekakariki portrait. I needed to update my Paekakariki portrait after Miriama Grace-Smith painted a wonderful mural on the old Holtom Building.

A change in the weather. Feathery cirrus clouds above the coast signal oncoming rain.

Approaching storm. A fierce southerly front swept up the coast, with Kapiti Island still in sunshine. Moments later, the deluge caught me!

Summer clouds. Fluffy cumulus clouds are a sign of summer, but can also bring brief afternoon showers.

Milky Way over Kapiti. We are fortunate to have relatively dark skies over Kapiti, that give us views of the night sky not seen by most people in the world. Here is a photo of the Milky Way reaching north over the Kapiti Coast. A car illuminates the road to the Paekakariki Hill lookout.

Milky Way over Paraparaumu. This photo from the top of Nikau Reserve needed two exposures 15 minutes apart to avoid the smothering light pollution over Paraparaumu.

Solar storm over Paekakariki. The largest solar storm in two decades struck the Earth on 11 May 2024. From Raumati South, I captured this panorama stretching from the east all the way to Kapiti Island.

Kapiti Island aurora. The aurora of 11 May 2024 reached north of Kapiti Island and coincided with a setting crescent moon. I reduced the saturation of the print as it was too gaudy out of the camera!

From the heavens. At one point the aurora sent beams down from directly overhead. The spectacle was clearly visible to the eye and expected orchestral music!

West Coast waterfall. A gentle waterfall on the first day of the Paparoa Track

Kohekohe flowers. Dappled light from a setting sun illuminated the foliage behind these kohekohe flowers on the Paekakariki Escarpment Track.

Reaching for the light. Miro leaves on the Milford Track.

Nectar harvest. One of my honeybees landing on a borage flower in our garden. I used a very shallow depth of field (about a millimetre!) focused on the bee’s eye to present what I think a bee sees in a world full of colours.

Breakfast. A pair of white-fronted terns (tara) feeding their chick. The early morning sun warmed this family at Waikanae Estuary, contrasting the brown chick with its monochromatic parents.

Reflective spoonbill. I disturbed this royal spoonbill (kotuku ngutu papa) apparently deep in thought at Waikanae estuary in the early morning light.

Snatching a moment. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a swallow (warou) sweep down to snatch a feather floating on the glassy waters of Waikanae estuary. Somehow, I managed to capture the moment!

Marching home. I captured some of my favourite bird photos on a trip to the Falklands and South Georgia in November 2023. Here a group of gentoo penguins march back home on Sealion Island, Falklands after a successful day fishing.

Surfing a frozen wave. Snow petrels wafted delicately on South Georgia gales, and with some patience I captured this bird in front of an iceberg.

Black on white. Cape petrels were common in the waters around South Georgia. Here one flies up the flanks of an iceberg.

Soaring over frozen sea. Grey-headed albatrosses are solitary birds, spending most of their lives flying over frigid Antarctic seas.

Te Rourou
- Twenty years of change

Over the years Te Rourou (the One NZ Foundation) has partnered with hundreds of extraordinary kiwis around Aotearoa who are working hard to improve the lives of rangatahi. This project presented the stories of just 20 of them. Each is making a difference in their own way, whether providing safe spaces, fighting for equal opportunity, encouraging new skills or inspiring future leaders. I had the pleasure of photographing four of these wonderful people: David Graham, Maddy de Young, Joel Mudford and Sarah Longbottom.

https://terourou-one-aotearoa-foundation.webflow.io/#stories

Vaxathon

I had the privilege to photograph the October 2021 Vaxathon to encourage people to get vaccinated to flatten the curve of covid-19 infections.

Chasewild wedding workshop

I had a lot of fun at an NZIPP workshop run by James Broadbent of Chasewild, one of New Zealand's leading wedding photographers (https://www.chasewild.com/). This included a shoot of a "bridal couple" (two professional models). The wind and the rain (visible in some of the photos) were a challenge but accentuated the urban environment.

Dress by Sophie Voon (https://www.sophievoon.com/)

Dogs of Paekakariki

Something I've noticed when walking my dog on the beach during lockdown is that lots of others are also doing this: walking, or running, or cycling with their dog safely on the beach. So I took my camera, put on my mask, stayed at least 4m from people (I used a long lens) and very quickly took some photos. Here is a selection from the last week of level 4 lockdown 2021.

Stars and Surf

An exhibition at the Mulled Wine Concert in Paekakariki, 24 July 2021

Paekakariki is blessed with clear, clean skies and seas, providing spectacular seascapes and nightscapes.

Prints from these images can be ordered by contacting me at bob@momentsoflight.nz

Kapiti sunset from Paekakariki Hill Road

Kapiti westerlies

Kapiti dreaming

Marlborough Sounds sunset

Paekakariki surf 1

Paekakariki surf 2

Paekakariki sunset

Escarpment misty mood

Lunar eclipse 26 May 2021

Eclipsed moon and Milky Way 26 May 2021

Milky Way over Kapiti

Conjunction of Mars, Venus and the crescent Moon 12 July 2021

Milky Way over Mt Ruapehu

A wet day at Lake Ferry

A group of friends from the NZ Institute of Professional Photography had planned a weekend at Lake Ferry in southern Wairarapa with a focus on astrophotography. The rain and the clouds obscured the stars but provided a wonderful moody atmosphere.

The Bubbles of Paekakariki

In response to the covid-19 pandemic, New Zealand entered Level 4 lockdown on 26 March 2020. The primary objective was to isolate people in bubbles to stop the spread of the virus. During the last week of lockdown, I photographed 55 bubbles in my home town of Paekakariki - about one in twelve households. All photos were taken spontaneously from the property boundary using a telephoto lens to keep social distance.

A selection is shown below. A 60 page A4 book with high quality photos is available for $30.

Voices for the Future

During the 2016 Auckland Arts Festival, I worked with Joe Michael (installation), Rhian Sheehan (music) and others to project an iceberg onto the Auckland War Memorial Museum. The success of this installation led to the opportunity to project a living and dying iceberg on the UN buildings in New York, combined with the voices of young people around the globe (including Greta Thunberg) about their concerns about climate change. The installation occurred just in advance of the UN Climate Action Summit in September 2019. Here are some photos from this installation.

Helen Clark and the NZ Representative to the UN (with Joe on the right) were instrumental in the success of the installation.

Our canvas: the UN Secretariat and General Assembly buildings in New York

A huge amount of video editing and rendering was required.

Images were projected by 21 huge projectors onto both UN buildings

The projectors had to be aligned carefully.

We worked with seven young people from around the globe, including Greta Thunberg, speaking in the 7 languages of the UN. Here is Greta speaking to a huge climate rally in New York.

Klaus Thyman coordinated the voices from the young people, here with El Medhi Zairi (French - Morocco) and Ahmed Badr (Arabic - USA)

Their words were projected as their voices called out.

This scene showed the iceberg collapsing down the side of the 250m tall building.

The iceberg projected on the UN buildings.

Truly spectacular!

The installation finished with Greta's call to action.

Paekakariki Positive Pictures

In response to the Covid-19 pandemic, most of New Zealand locked-down on 26 March 2020, significantly restricting our movement outside our isolation "bubbles". My commercial photographic work ground to a halt. In response to ongoing media reports about actual and projected impacts of the virus, I decided to take a positive photo from within my community each day during lockdown Level 4. Here is a selection.

#1: Positive pooches

#2: Guard bee defending her hive

#3: Laughter is the best medicine: my daughter with a friend's son on Paekakariki beach last night

#5: Crescent moon over Kapiti

#6: Cheerful chooks: today is wet, cold and windy - today needs a cheery photo!

#8: The centre of my universe: Normally a bustling hubbub of coffee drinkers, hikers recovering after walking the escarpment track, and locals chatting after buying icecream from the dairy. 29 March 2020: clouds dissipating after the southerly storm - deserted as people heed the call to stay at home.

#7: A warm bubble: my father, a retired vet joined our "bubble" for lockdown.

#11: First flight: my camera records a sequence of up-down wing beats as a gull flies past.

#9: Smothered by fog A thick, damp fog rolled in from the sea yesterday, obscuring the sun and the outside world and imparting a wonderful stillness.

$#12: Reflections and refractions$

#12: Reflections and refractions

#13: Moonrise over Paekakariki surf club

#14: A bird with an identity problem: californian quail.

#15: Rampant rhapsody in blue: one of the worst weeds in our garden is agapanthus.

#17: There be dragons: northern grass skink into our garden.

#18: Symphony in orange: an hour after sunset.

#19: Industrious honeybee

#20: A royal visit: a couple of royal spoonbills visited our beach.

#21: The essence of Paekakariki

#22: Castaways Heavy surf driven by the cold sou'wester washed much seaweed and this colony of gooseneck barnacles onto the beach.

#23: Diversity in numbers I love the diversity of our village, something that is illustrated by the variety of our letterboxes.

#24: What do they do in shadows? Eels in the Wainui Stream.

#25: Working together in their own bubble: there are four different types of organisms, called polyps, each working together.

#26: Paekakariki bubble I've started a small project to photograph some Paekakariki bubbles (adhering strictly to isolation rules). The bubbles choose how they wish to be portrayed. Here is the first.