International blog day - subject environment

Beauty, passion, love and laughter - these are the inscriptions on a sculpture at the outlet of Lake Wanaka, by local artist Ernie Malluschnig, as featured in the above photo taken especially today - International Blogging Day, where all bloggers are encouraged to write something about the environment.

We New Zealanders live in a landscape in many places devoid of people, so Ernie's work should remind us that in all walks of life we must never forget his inscriptions and to Shine On [another inscription on the south side of the work - it faces our northern noon sun, across water]!

As readers of my weekly blog many of you will have noted my passion for landscape photography, but I've never written much about the "zen" of it.

Well considering that every 2 mins on earth a jumbo plane load's worth of new souls is born and that at this rate within a week there are enough new kids to make up a city, we should ponder [and act] on how such numbers impact on landscapes and resources. It's fashionable now to cite global warming, but that's only part of the story!

While my strengths may not be in ways to solve these issues I can in my own way draw people's attention to our environment in New Zealand by what I choose to photograph, in what light and what to exclude to draw the viewers attention to one thing at least that really matters: to increase sensitivity and awareness in our environment, and I don't mean just landscapes here, but human interaction. In every exchange we have one simple choice: do we instill beauty, passion, love and laughter into the person, or make their day worse!

Every child under age 15 today is, in their mid years, going to have to grapple with a population density that is beyond out current imagination and resources. We have to bring love to bear to give us the energy to prepare them. One way to raise such energy is to observe and appreciate beauty - it is all around us. My discipline is landscapes, but there are many brilliant portrait photographers that capture the essence of the soul, and many artists like Ernie who make us stop and think: what is this journey all about? He etched the clues on the base of his work!