Castle Hill Collection - 1

Sacred place of the Ngāi Tahu tribe. (pronounced - ‘Nye tar-who’)

Ever since I was introduced to Castle Hill in inland Canterbury a few years back, it has been an enigma for me. It seems so chaotic. So random. So messy. The limestone formations offer seemingly endless vistas and views with a new visual delight around every corner. Families come during the daytime to explore and play. Astro photographers come at night to capture it under the Milky Way night sky. There is something here for everyone.

The area was once under a large, shallow inland sea that began to infill some 30 million years ago. Pressure over time caused extensive uplift and folding and faulting of the Torlesse and Craigieburn Ranges. Thrust up from their origin, the limestone rock was eroded by water into these distinctive sculptured landforms, called a karst landscape.

‘Kura Tāwhiti’ literally means “the treasure from a distant land”, referring to the kumara (sweet potato) that was once cultivated in this region by Maori.
In 2002, The Dalai Lama named it the ‘Spiritual centre of the universe’.

And yet already the area is showing significant signs of wear and also some vandalism. If you intend to visit Castle Hill, please go to this link to find out what rules you need to follow in order to have a great time with as minimal an impact on the area as possible:
https://www.doc.govt.nz/parks-and-recreation/places-to-go/canterbury/places/kura-tawhiti-conservation-area/

As a photographer, how does one find meaningful compositions amongst such chaos let alone create a cohesive portfolio of images of an area such as this? I have been lucky enough to spend a number of full days there over the winter of 2018. For much of the first day I literally just sat enjoying the views or wandered around familiarising myself with this incredibly unique environment, attempting to get a ‘feel’ for the place. Let it get ‘under my skin’ so to speak.

I realised in my sittings and wanderings that it was not about bringing a sense of ‘order’ to the chaos, but instead to highlight its beauty - how the rock formations interact both with each other, the landscape and skyscape around them.

These 12 images are the first of a two part (and likely continually evolving) series. I hope you enjoy them.
More to come…