During our most recent visit to New Zealand we had the opportunity to drive through the village of Burkes Pass as we were returning from Mount Cook National Park. We arrived at Burkes Pass late in the day after the shops had closed, but still thoroughly enjoyed our colourful ‘visit back in time’.

NOTE: Click on images to enlarge.

It would have been great to talk to the owners of this unique display of eclectic items, and the small collection of retail shops – I’m sure they would be very creative folks!

As my wife and I strolled the grounds we were almost overwhelmed with the diversity of the items on display.

There were some interesting examples of re-purposed items like the table made by incorporating the front end of a Morris.

There were also some examples of Kiwi humour.

During our brief visit some heavy storm clouds were approaching which caused us to rush our explorations somewhat.

Burkes Pass is one of those unique locations where one’s eye cannot help but be attracted to all kinds of unusual items, shapes, and combinations of colours.

Part of the challenge when composing photographs in this kind of almost over-stimulating environment is to find specific shooting positions and fields-of-view to try to direct a viewer’s eye in an image.  Adjusting the distance of your camera from the ground can be an important consideration when framing images.

Zoom lenses that provide a wide range of focal lengths like my 1 Nikon 10-100mm f/4-5.6 (efov 27-270mm) are often panned by many photographers due to optical quality trade-offs.

For this kind of subject matter I found the 1 Nikon 10-100mm to be ideal because of its focal length flexibility.

If you ever find yourself on the South Island of New Zealand driving along Highway 8 between Tekapo and Fairlie, a stop in the village of Burkes Pass is well worth it!

Technical Note:
All photographs were captured using Nikon 1 gear as per the EXIF data. All images were produced from RAW files using my standard process of DxO PhotoLab, CS6 and the Nik Collection.

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