Nugget Point is one of the iconic New Zealand landscapes and photos of the Nugget Point lighthouse with the nuggets beyond is ubiquitous on a Google search. This view is from a spot requiring a short climb from the path and is causing significant erosion problems. I wasn’t prepared to add my bootprints to the erosion problem so looked for something alternative. 

The rock strata tilted 90 degrees to create the nuggets is the most impressive aspect for me so I chose to try and contrast this texture against a smooth sea and sky by using a 10 stop ND filter to achieve 30 second exposure times. This was a challenge as the wind was howling and so made keeping steady camera even on a tripod difficult. I made numerous exposures while trying to shield my camera from the wind as much as possible and timing the release for lulls in the wind. Most exposures had some camera shake issues but a few were sharp and worth processing. One the presets in Skylum (previously MacPhun) Tonality that I often use is Gelmertype and it worked well with these images. I enjoy the flexibility of being able to work in layers and, if necessary, using different coloured filters to control tonal values in different parts of the image.

Heading back to Kaka Point I stopped to take some more shots toward Nugget Point using an old hut as a foreground feature.

Photos with Nikon D810 with Nikon 18-35mm f3.5-4.5 lens with Hoya 10 stop ND filter on Manfrotto 055MF3 carbon fibre tripod with Really Right Stuff BH-55 ballhead.