Mt. Hutt

Went snowboarding on Monday at Mt. Hutt with my classmate John and his family. That's his wife Sue on the other side of the flag. Weather wasn't the best, but we still made a day of it. This was my second time to snowboard and I don't have it down yet. Fell quite a lot.

From the Hills and a Roadtrip

Christchurch is mostly flat, with the exception of some hills to the south, called the Port Hills that surround a bay formed by an old volcanic crater...I think is how it goes. One shot below is from the Port Hills overlooking the city. Another is also from the Hill further east showing the beaches (it was a rainy day).
Also threw in a random photo of the Art Gallery.
Finally, there's a photo from the road trip Rick White and I took back in April. Rick is who was originally going to come to NZ and I was going to tag along. In the end he wussed out and did something else really boring, while I came down to Awesome New Zealand. Many more photos from our trip are here and here
In two weeks, he got quite the NZ experience.

This weekend I'm planning to travel to Wanaka with some friends for another look at the snow capped Southern Alps.

Skiing The Southern Alps

Porter Heights ski field in the Southern Alps near Castle Hill.

Team Building Exercise

One morning last week, a few days before a project was due, Andrew the technician came into our computer room where it was just me and John, another student, and asked if we wanted to go on a jet boat ride in 5 minutes. John wanted to but declined because he wanted to finish some work on his already amazing project. I had yet to start this 8 week project and said yes because the project just didn't feel like it was ready to be started yet.

Dave, our photojournalism teacher from last year has a jet boat and wanted to take it on the water one last time before he put it away for the winter. The other teachers felt they really needed a Team Building Exercise. I went along as a student rep.

A little history about the jet boat, as explained to me by Dave... This particular style of boat was invented in NZ. The principle behind the jet ski comes from this design. It sucks water in from a grate under the boat, and then shoots it out a pipe. It's pretty impressive, and allows the boat to ride through quite shallow water.








And I finished the project.

Photo Exercises

Since last year whenever we've been taught something in class, we're broken into groups to go out and try that lesson on our own. It may just be testing the camera's white balance, trying a new lighting technique, or any number of things. Some groups just do simple shots of other classmates...but in my group I try and spice it up. It often involves a mask and, to some degree, violence (just to invoke a little emotion). We always try to raise the bar and do stuff even more over the top than the previous...I can't show you those, but here are some other one's that we've done this year that I think are quite impressive.


This original scene was just of a coffee stand with a few patrons, shot by Arno (creative lighting teacher). We were to try and recreate similar lighting in the studio, shoot a few people, then montage them into the shot using Photoshop. There are four of us added in, as well as the explosion.


"Turf Wars" between two photographers. Shot on location with portable studio lights. I just got a knee kick to the face.








Two explorers about to be attacked by a pirate jumping from the cave wall. Shot in a cave using portable lights.

Back in NZ

I've been really busy/lazy, so sorry about not updating the blog. I'm back in NZ, arrived end of Feb. School is going great. I'm learning so much more about creative lighting in and out of the studio.
Last weekend our ChCh Ultimate team went to Wellington for Nationals. I played awful, and probably brought the rest of the team down. Still had fun, though.
Mr. Rick White is finally coming down to NZ, over a year late, next week, so we'll be doing a good road trip.
I have two blogs, the one you're reading is for travel stuff, and the other one is my school photography...www.jonathanlantz.blogspot.com
Above is a photo of the Castle Hill area, pretty amazing place, just and hour and a half outside of CHCH. Close to where they shot Narnia.

Sunday Morning Coming Down

(This is going to be quickly written and may not make sense)
It helps to know the song "Sunday Morning Coming Down"...
Last Sunday the All Black were playing France in the quarter finals. It was on at 8a.m. NZ time. I went to a pub in the city center called The Holy Grail, where it was packed...later to find out half of them were French fans. I ordered eggs and bacon, expensive but not bad. Yes, there were people drinking, and I thought of the song later that day and realized that I missed a prime opportunity to have a beer for breakfast and one more for dessert. It would have been even more appropriate because the All Blacks actually lost to France by two points! It made me sick and I'm not even from this country. It's as if the Razorbacks played rugby. You want them to win so bad and they have so much potential, but they lose, and it just kills you. (Except that the All Blacks really are the best team out there...really. Unlike the Razorbacks, who really aren't that great, you just really want them to win.) On the other hand, regarding the drinking at 8 a.m., I had to go to work at 10 a.m., so maybe it was best that I didn't have a few beers.
Now I know how Brazil felt in the 2002 Soccer World Cup...France, who'd a thought?