Astro-Photography Workshop with David Jensen Fun Time on a Cold Mountain By Paul Whitham LPSNZ The third workshop in the 2021 PSNZ workshop series saw a hardy group of photographers braving the dark and cold in search of a great Astro image. This was the third time that PSNZ had offered an Astro workshop and, like the previous two, it sold out very quickly. The location for this year’s event was on the central plateau, based around Horopito, a locality known for Horopito Motors (better known as ‘Smash Palace’). The historical Horopito School was the meeting place for our training sessions. The Friday session covered the basics: how to take the best shots, using those all-important settings. The workshop was initially planned to be led by Taranaki photographer Leith Robertson, who organised the first workshop in 2019. Unfortunately, Leith suffered a heart attack, just a fortnight out from the event. While he was keen to continue, his whānau vetoed the idea, so we enlisted the services of David Jensen to run the workshop.
David has extensive experience in astrophotography and was trained by Mark Gee. He had previously run one of the Astro workshops at the 2019 National Convention and was currently teaching night photography at Wellington College. Fortunately, James Gibson ASPNZ EFIAP and Leith had already found some potential locations for the night activities, so we were not starting completely blind. While there was a draft plan in place, mountain weather is unpredictable. We knew we would have to be flexible anyway. After dinner in Ohakune, everyone donned their thermals and we drove back around the mountain to the beginning of the Tongariro Crossing. Because the day had given us a mixture of cloudy and clear skies, we were not optimistic that we would see many stars. When we reached the car park it started to rain; that had not been in the forecast at all! David told everyone that he had very good star intuition, so we set off along the track.
By David Jensen
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