Mark Hannah Photography

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Mark Hannah Photography

Landscape, nature and wildlife photographer bringing the world to your wall. Photography has long been a passion of mine. Thanks for visiting and enjoy the view.

I love being able to record, express and share my experiences with others in a way that emphasises not only what I saw at the time of shooting, but also what I felt. I hope you take the time to enjoy my gallery and feel free to like, comment, share and message me.

24/01/2024

A bit of fun with a quick phone edit of my favourite sculptures, STAY by Antony Gormley. The pair of sculptures one here in the Arts Centre, the other mid flow in the Avon resonated with me in post quake Christchurch.

24/04/2023

Not your average Monday night.

Must be something special about this time in April as it's almost 6 years to the day that I photographed my first aurora in Lake Tekapo, you can find that post early on in my feed.

I've seen a fair few since then and this is hands down the best I've seen it in New Zealand, well minus one time in Dunedin when I was a child and it was overhead but that's pre-camera days. The light pilars were easily visible to the naked eye and a hint of green on the horizon. Grateful that this time I got to experience this phenomenon just 5 minutes from home.

28/08/2021

The Next Journey

I've recently had a burst of motivation and inspiration to get back into photography and am excited to see where this next step on the journey goes.

Reminsing of the days road tripping through Arizona in landscapes I'd never seen before.

24/08/2021

The Next Sunrise

Here in NZ we find ourselves for the most part confined to our homes while Covid does the rounds again.

I'm fortunate enough to be able to continue to work from home with relative comfort and in the beautiful location that I have called home for the last year.

For those who aren't so fortunate my thoughts are certainly with you. I acknowledge my privelages and know that lockdown can affect each person differently. To be honest the only thing keeping me sane is that I can keep myself occupied with my creative outlets. Of late that has been furniture building which is why I haven't been posting my photography.

Tonight I decided to have a quick look at what images I had previously edited and we're ready to upload but hadn't shared them for a feeling of lack of passion or perhaps more a feeling of lack of purpose.

While we are confined, our minds might play with our emotions as we question things like how long will this last?

All I can say is that we've been through this before. A silver lining is we know lockdowns work in the short term to stop the transmition and it won't be forever.

Like all things this too shall pass and there will be another glorious sunrise waiting for you when it does.

Perhaps that is why I decided to share this image from nearly 3 years ago tonight. A feeling of hope and a purpose for this image.

03/07/2021

Once more round the sun, a little older and a little wiser. Birthdays tend to be a time for me to stop and reflect. This year I want to focus on growth of both body and mind. So last night I decided to write down whatever came to mind. No expectations or plan, just musings. I really wasn't expecting this to be what came to surface.

Surround yourself with people who inspire you
People who care what you've been up to
People you go back to after years without seeing
People that aren't afraid to ask "how's your wellbeing"
People that enable and cause you to laugh
People who keep you on the right path
People who give back more than they take
People who are real and just couldn't be fake
People who discuss ideas over gosip
People willing to stand up and say "stop it"
People who lead you to think more deeply
People you can just yarn with daily or weekly
People who accept you for just being you
People that love you more when you're true
People who pick you up and invite
People who prefer to discuss and not fight
People you always look forward to see
People you would be more than happy to be

Listeners
Motivators
Reciprocators
Inovators

Investigators
Elevators
Educators
Appreciators

Don't waste your time with those who just aren't
People who's only advice is "no" or "you can't"

Learn to move on from those when you try Those who only give back an emoji reply

If I looked in the mirror what would I see?
Am I that person I want others to be?

I've never tried rythming my thoughts and didn't expect to, it just felt like the right thing as I was free writing.

Anyway, here's to growth and those I love the most 🥰

27/05/2021

I love a good creative challenge and taking this photo was full of them.

I only found out about the Super Flower Blood Moon Eclipse after finishing work leaving me with a couple of hours to decide if I would give capturing it a go 🙈

I'd seen the 2014 total lunar eclipse in Christchurch and photographed that with my D7000 attached to the back of my 600mm telescope. I had mixed results from that experience with good magnification but the d7000 certainly doesn't compare to the d850 I now use. I sold that telescope a few years back as I wasn't using it and the longest lens I have now is a 70-200/f4.

At 200mm the moon doesn't even come close to filling the screen. This is a heavy crop of the full shot to magnify the moon. Knowing the limitations of my gear I pulled out all the tricks I knew to get the best image quality I could.

Thankfully it was a very clear sky from home so I didn't have to travel to take in this amazing event. Which was very fortunate considering the lack of clouds meant photographing in -2°C for the 4 hours of the sequence, just another challenge 🥶😅

I'm really pleased with the level of detail I was able to capture and am happy to have come away with a photo of the experience. But like the first time I watched the full sequence in 2014 it's the unique experience of watching a giant shadow engulf the moon with my own eyes that I'll treasure, the pic is just a nice reminder.

21/04/2021

Remembering back to one of my best experiences from my time in the US.

Walking for a day up and down The Narrows in Zion National Park.

A place where you can't help but feel tiny as you pass through the never ending canyon with sheer faces of rock loam over you.

A place that comes to life when the sun hits the faces and bounces its way down the canyon. Illuminating everything the most beautiful orange.

It was such a fun, rewarding and enriching experience where I spent the majority of the walk wadding in knee deep water and then occasionaly chest deep when I found the occasional pocket 🙈🤣

02/04/2021

Happy Easter my friends.

It's been a very busy few months for me. I've got 10 days away from work lined up and a whole lot of rest and recovery planned. Some mind find that lazy or unproductive but hey that's what I know I need.

I find it interesting in our culture that being busy seems to be something to aspire to. People ask how you're doing and you say "busy" and you get a "that's good" in response.

By all means I acknowledge my privelage to have a lot of work on in this post Covid environment. Especially living in a toursim town where other people are struggling to stay afloat, but I personally don't consider being busy as a healthy state for extended peirods of time. Having seen the effects of burnout in myself and in plenty of other friends and co-workers and seeing the effect it can have on one's mental state.

Thankfully over the years I've learnt where my limit is and how to rebalance. Maybe it's just me but I suspect it's not, but when did it become the norm to constantly prove how resilient we can be?

Anyway, I'll be enjoying plenty of time with family and catching up on sleep and giving this introverted personality some time to recharge ✌️

Who's with me? What do you do to recharge when life is at full throttle?

Photo taken in calmer times when I felt more relaxed traveling through Yellowstone National Park with dramatic moody sunsets ☺️

25/03/2021

Reminiscing on evenings exploring Yellowstone National Park.

A place where the colour of the geothermal pools rival sunsets.

But when they come together 🙌

15/03/2021

Had some great fun getting the camera out again for the first real deliberate effort in 8 months over the weekend.

Really enjoyed exploring the backyard a bit more with some renewed motivation while , and held a casual photo walk with support from .

It was a great evening catching up with old mates, finally meeting some others in person and making plenty of new ones too.

That's what I love about the photography community. Just getting out and enjoy our passion in good company and sharing some yarns.

Must have been a pretty special night to get me to edit a shot within a few days, let alone a few years 😅

Managed to get this wee focus stacked shot while trialing a 24-70 2.8 from Tamron. Not a range I normally shoot in but I did enjoy finding different perspectives in that range while lying in the mud.

11/03/2021

Something I have eluded to fairly often recently but haven't really gone into any detail is how my photography is my outlet for mental health.

They say art can be a form of therapy and over the last 6 or so years where I've been to the deep lows and back again I can attest to that.

If you were to look far enough back into my photo journey you'd see quite a shift to the dramatic and moody. You could attribute that to just finding my style but for me it has been far deeper.

Somewhere in my lowest points I decided to just edit the way I was feeling rather than trying to confirm to whatever the popular style was at the time. I attemped to communicate my emotions in a non verbal manner and embraced the darkness. The moodiness came from deep within and like breaking a seal, it just kept coming.

After many years of learning to embrace the emotions they softened. It's a hard concept to try to put into words (again visuals are my preferred medium) but when I edit my photos I see it as a way of almost playing with my emotions. Much liked a painter mixes colours on a blank canvas I feel like I'm able to use my artistic skill to tell a story without words. Just a feeling.

Surprisingly, over the many years coming from fearing my emotions, trying to suppress them to leaning into them and now even "playing" with them I'm able to detach from them. By no means is it a miracle cure for mental illnesses but for me it has been a way to accept myself more for who I am and that in itself has brought some relief.

05/03/2021

Happy Friday!

Been a very busy few weeks at work but it's Friday evening and I'm chilling at home in the best way I know how.

I remember editing this photo back in July 2019 around my birthday and it has sat on my computer since (along with about 20 other shots I'm waiting to share with you 😅).

This one felt special to me and I'm glad that after the year and a half since I edited it (closer to 2.5 since I shot it 🤯) I'm still in awe of it and what I saw that evening alone on the road in the Grand Teton National Park.

I'm also very happy to be taking a much more relaxed approach to social media where uploading and trying to express myself is so much easier not having to tag 20 accounts and throw a cycling list of hashtags in to try get more exposure while fighting some "algorithm".

Now just a wee insight into the shot or my musings and move on. Less stress. Less expectations. More time. More happiness.

To those that have mentioned to me that my images help them to see beauty in their world while they are struggling I thank you 🙏 it is the least I can do and I sympathise deeply.

I hope you enjoy it and that if you're in a dark spot there is always light at the end of the tunnel, figuratively and in this case quite literally.

I hope you have an enjoyable weekend and you get to give yourself some time to put yourself first.

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http://www.markhannahphotography.com/

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