Book Reviews » New Zealand Untouched Landscapes

April 2nd 2017

Untouched-Landscape_cvr-72Petr Hlavacek
Potton & Burton
$49.99
Reviewed by Lynnaire Johnston

If you like landscape photo books, you’ll love this one! Largely taken in the South Island, these double-wide shots are of places well known – Pancake Rocks, Milford Sound, Lake Wanaka – and those less well known and harder to get to like the Tasman Glacier, the Catlins, Hooker Lake and others. Almost all involve water – lakes, rivers, glaciers, shorelines. Many feature striking light – sunrises and sunsets, or that one special moment when the sun peeks out of the clouds to light up the photo’s subject. Photography is the art of being in the right place at the right time to take the perfect shot. It is also about planning, strategy and the tedium of waiting until the conditions are perfect to get the best photo. Many of the views in this book can take some effort to get to, via the Routeburn Track for example. So, unless helicopters are employed to drop the photographer at the desired location, it can be a ‘bit of a walk’ to get there. The author’s brief preface makes no mention of how he took these photos, of