NZ’s tallest trees on show at Wintec art gallery
A group of tree-lovers in Hamilton have used time-lapse, hyper-lapse and cutting edge editing with custom built camera rigs, drones and 30m long cable cameras to create ground-breaking new angles of the forest world.
The New Zealand Tree Project exhibition is on show at Wintec's RAMP Gallery by appointment until 29 January 2015.
This innovative film and photography venture has captured imagery of majestic trees and native podocarp forest from viewpoints that have never been experienced from the forest floor.
The project team of Wintec's arboriculture academic Andrew Harrison, Catherine Kirby, a research support officer at Waikato University, adventure photographer Steven Pearce and ecologist Jen Sanger spent a month deep in the Pureora Forest with a 40-metre rimu tree as their major focus.
The project is a New Zealand version of one of the most successful National Geographic projects ever undertaken. That American National Geographic project involved a 1500-year-old redwood tree which was portrayed in a five-page fold-out using hundreds of individual photographs.
The group spent more than 29 days in the forest to capture over 120,000 images and 1200 video clips.
The project team created a specialised camera rig that ran the entire 40m vertical length of the tree. The end result is an extraordinarily high quality, high resolution image from a level view point and without distortion, Catherine says.
The big picture has been created by stitching together 65 of the collected images and will be accompanied by a documentary and a series of stunning gallery images.
"We've brought together art, science, history and technology, designing the project with exhibitions in mind, starting off at Wintec's RAMP Gallery in Hamilton next Monday [December 14]," Catherine says.
"We've captured the beauty of the giant podocarp forests, with interesting and informative environmental educational material and interviewed scientists, protestors, trampers, former loggers and iwi to capture the story of forest logging, protests and conservation in Pureora Forest."
Andrew says he's found it inspiring to be a part of the NZ Tree Project.
"It has been a privilege to climb the majestic forest trees at Pureora. The canopy is so full of plant life that it's like being part of an unexplored heavenly realm," says Andrew.
"The challenge of climbing these forest giants is more about taking care of the plant life that is there than the physical challenge of ascending and moving around. Some of the epiphytes can be decades if not centuries old so moving delicately to not dislodge any is a part of the experience."
To find out more about the New Zealand Tree Project or to make an appointment to view the exhibition, visit their website at www.nztreeproject.com
