Sounds Aero Maintenance

I was given the chance to fly with Sounds Aero last week, flying high above Marlborough Sounds and outbacks. Thanks to Craig Anderson, the managing director of Sounds Aero Maintanance, a company which managed a large fleet of planes and helicopters in the Marlborough region.

It was my day off and i managed to arrange a time to fly with Craig to get some aerial photography shots of Marlborough. Dont know much about plane but this was a 2 seater, small size plane capable of landing on almost anywhere. According to Craig, we can lift off in 25 meters, which is really amazing! We land on fields and riverbed, flying across narrow gaps, it was simply breathtaking. Im even allowed to shoot with the door open while we are flying. Cant believe i dare to do that, and not to mention, risked the camera and equipments of falling down.

Anyway, I'm still in process of editing the photos and videos shot from both Nikon D700 and Olympus OM-D E-M5 (loaned by James Luhrs of Olympus New Zealand). So here's some preview..



CRop Circle of NZ? :P






Flying and taking photos while the door is open? Exciting!


The men behind Sounds Aero Maintenance


What a beautiful morning!


It was really cool to be here, especially when u only took 4 min from main road on the plane, compared to 4 hours tramping. Nice peaceful environment, crystal clear water, wildlife around, it was just perfect for a weekend getaway!


We need a little landing and taking off from the river.. and here's one of the shot






Never thought i could experience this, but i did, all thanks to Craig! It was simply AMAZING!

Kiwi Kids

For those who don't know, I'm also one of the photographer in Light Feather Studios. We are based in Penang, Malaysia and specialise in wedding videography and photography. For more info about our works and portfolio, do feel free to visit www.lightfeatherstudios.com. Most of our clients are based in Malaysia, but occasionally, we do get to shoot in Australia, & New Zealand.

Besides wedding, we also covers events such as portraiture and products in commercial photography. One of our recent job were to shoot some New Zealander kids or more commonly known as Kiwi kids. The shoot was held in one of the private school in Picton, New Zealand and here are some of the cute little kids of New Zealand, or i prefer to call them Kiwi kids :)



Most of them are pretty talented and photogenic i should say.. as kids are sometimes tricky to photograph. Some took a few try to get the smiles and expression, but some are just great and instant! Here's few more photos..





Besides the websites, you can visit and like our Facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/LightFeatherStudios for more of our works in Portraiture and Behind the scenes (BTS), Slideshows, and Same Day Edit (SDE) videos uploaded regularly as we go through each clients photo-shoot session.

Motueka - Golden Bay, Day 4 and 5

Cant remember much now since it's been a delay in my blog post.. thousand apologies! I'll fill this blog post with photos to tell the whole story :)

We went to Waikoropupu Spring, or Pupu Spring in short and Hydro Walkway the next day. It's located about 10 minutes from Takaka township. Pupu Spring is famous because it has the world's clearest water! Imagine that!



Too bad the wind are quite strong and hinder our opportunity to capture some 'see through' shots :( Anyway, we headed to Hydro Walkway to enjoy some nature walks.







Such a lovely ferns isnt it?








There's all sorts of ferns and moss all around the walkway.. due to the high moisture content and humidity around the area, particular along the canals.




Beautiful place, but a little boring.. the only thing i found attracting is the finding of sundews!


Anyway, after few hours of jungle walks.. we are practically starving! And we gt just the right solution, Anatoki Salmon Farm is just around the corner. We drove about 20min to get there and greeted by a cute donkey on the way in.


The entrance of the salmon farm is pretty interesting, at least to me, cause I'm in the aquaculture industry all this while.








This kind of farms makes me drools, motivate and inspired me at the same time! Looking at those fishes in the water is just satisfying!


and the smells of hot smoked salmon makes me even hungrier! hahaha.. so, quickly, we grab a rod from the office and head to the fishing pond! It is so easy to fish here.. within seconds, we caught 2 huge salmon. One at 2kg and another one at 1.15kg. Lovely...


Smaller one for sashimi and bigger one, hot smoked tandoori! The price of the fresh salmon was $19 per kg, sashimi $5 labor cost, hot smoked $10 cooking cost. Cheap!








Yum yum yum! That meal makes my day! I can have these fishes every day if i live in Takaka!!
After the meal, we drove to Motueka town and check for a suitable date for sky dive. We were glad to book the very next day for our jump, as the weather forecast seems pretty good. We check in at Laughing Kiwi Backpackers for a night, $27 a night if i'm not mistaken, and free 500mb of data for internet. I thought that was sufficient until i finished it in a mere few hours. Damn! Anyway, here's some shot of the backpacker. One of the nicest i think.




and so we prepare ourself mentally for the dive that night. To think of it is pretty scary, but, exciting as well! Never really thought of doing this due to the cost, but we got a great deal and why not? Once in a lifetime...erm.. maybe more in the future XD (i gt addicted after the dive....) I'll post the sky dive photos tomorrow, once i've uploaded everything into my Flickr album.