Usually when I go on holiday its to go diving and take images. I mainly shoot underwater but have since transitioned into insect macro, wildlife and now landscape photography. Each adds a string to my bow and utilizes different settings. The first trip of the year though was one for my partner and I to spend 10 days travelling around the South Island, New Zealand. This was not a photography holiday, but the camera equipment did come with me. I tried to limit the stop/start nature that landscape photography requires by buying a graduated filter set which will allow the foreground of the image to get a better exposure whilst not overexposing the sky (the perils of photography during the day). I took my 17-40mm, 70-200mm and my 2x extender to cover the bases.
Like any travel adventure you research before you go on what treks there are, where you going to stay, good places to dine and what nature we may encounter along the way.
The Catlins is an area in the southeastern corner of the South Island in between Invercargill and Dunedin. It is a beautiful and rugged area that has the rare yellow-eyed penguin (Megadyptes antipodes) and the New Zealand sea lion also known as the Hooker sea lion (Phocarctos hookeri). It was here that I wanted to spend some time to see if we could find them and get some images. Like all nature photography you can do the research, find the location, get the best time of the day but the weather may not be great or they just turn up. It’s not a zoo and they don’t appear on demand so patience is the key but generally get their early before everyone else turns up and scares them away.
We arrived at Waipapa Point in the late morning after a drive down from Te Anau. Heading down to the beach it was obvious that there was something to photograph as a group of people were stood around a hookers sea lion. It didn’t take long before they edged closed and it had enough so it retreated into the sea. The only image I got was the back of head in the distance. Armed with the knowledge that they were present we made a plan to head back to Invercargill and go back first thing in the morning.
Arriving at 8am meant there was soft but warm light and the same solitary male sea lion basking in the sun. It proceeded to stretch, yawn, scratch and do what sea lions do best, lay around until its time to go eat. With no other tourists around me, I had it all to myself. Keeping low to the ground and approaching slowly with the sun behind me I wanted to get the natural ambient light to do the work.
We stayed at Owaka in the Caitlins, a small town in between Invercargill and Dunedin (or as our Navman pronounced it “Dun-a-din”). From here we headed to Surat Bay, but despite trekking along the beach there were no tracks in the sand to show that any were here. The grass on the side of the beach was long and whilst they could be hidden in there, I decided to give Jack’s Bay a try instead. The roads in New Zealand are a mixture of well tarmacked roads to dusty rocky roads (which make you think you’re going to get a stone chip in the windscreen). Pulling into the car park I could see a family of sea lions lying on the beach. It consisted of 2 males and a number of females. Adult male sea lions can weigh over 400 kg and are known to aggressively defend their harems from other males during the breeding season.
Hooker’s sea lion numbers have been declining over the years as their relationship with humans (notably fisherman) see them compete for fish. Fisherman see them as detrimental to their catches and conflict arises which can lead to fatally. Disease