Te Whakawerawera Photo

Photographer’s Note

Te Whakawerawera, or Whaka for short, is Rotorua's best-known thermal zone and a major Maori cultural area. You go to Whaka to see geysers of hissing, steaming, scalding water roar from deep within the earth’s crust and hurl spray 30 metres into the air. Pools of bubbling mud pop and belch like pots of porridge.

Unfortunately the sky was very grey that day but in the middle of this photo you can see the jet and steam from a geyser. Among the bushes you can also see steam being emitted from cracks and crevices in the ground. Off the paths it can be a very dangerous place to walk.

I have cropped the sky a little and sharpened and used saturation (not quite sure what it did) on the photo.

glitch, bazal has marked this note useful

Critiques | Translate

RegisMinot (1317) 2004-11-13 2:21

The picture is quite informative, shows beautiful plants and interesting jet steams but there is too much sharpening (there are too many white points appearing on the leaves).

glitch (759) 2004-11-13 5:58

Nice image Janice!
Good depth of field with the plants in the foreground. Then the thermal activity in the midground give this a 'lost world' feel.
When you add saturation, it boosts most the colours in the photo, except for the grey tones. I think it has helped the green and red leaves, as the contrast between them is quite striking. Try it on some photos with clear blue skies. You should notice a difference then!
Well done!

[2] +

mpcorbett (340) 2004-11-13 20:29

I like this shot. I agree with RegisMinot in the notion of being over sharpened, but I don't think that its too distracting. The only thing I would like is to see the sky a bit darker.

bazal (7898) 2005-01-03 5:12

Interesting area you describe here. I like the shape and colors of trees and plants on the foreground and the good DOF. Well composed and well presented (nice note...).

danyy (69393) 2005-01-05 5:54

Cette image est un chef d'oeuvre de contrastes et de couleurs, on y distingue bien la densité de la végétation et les aspérités du terrain qui y rendent toutes les balades difficiles et aventureuses.
Mais le paysage en vaut la peine.

antho (408) 2005-08-07 8:45

What a beautiful picture! The landscape looks so wild, I can nearly see dinos walking there!
NZ looks a wonderful country, and I hope to go there one day!

ahmet54 (2249) 2006-02-16 16:05

Hi Janice,
beautiful capture of this thermal area. I like the saturated colors of the foreground. I like NZ tree ferns because they are so different from the trees we know in Europe. Real eye-catchers. TFS.
Kind regards,
Roland