MEET YOUR TUTORS
Jon Doe
RACHEL GILLESPIE - Director
PHOTOGRAPHY MENTOR, ASTRO & LANDSCAPE
Rachel Gillespie is a full-time Astrophotographer and Landcape Photographer and Guide in the Mackenzie Country and South Island, New Zealand and has hostsed guests at The Lindis Lodge, Ahuriri, Lakestone Lodge and other places around the region and is on crew at Intune Yoga Retreats for guided glacier walks and photography
Her passion is the night sky and astrophotography is her love along with landscapes. Adventuring in the Aoraki Mount Cook Dark Sky Reserve and the extended South Island is where you will find her when she is not being a busy mum of 3. She also has a busy print and canvas business and teaches printing workshops all the do's and don'ts that come with fine art production
Her passion for teaching others how to get their cameras off auto, and master manual settings, find their confidence in the outdoors alongside her clients and capture her beautiful country is her life's work. She will take you to her special spots and locations.
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JOSEPH POOLEY - Director
ASTRO, LANDSCAPE, STARGAZING, DEEP SKY
Joseph is a professional photographer who calls the Mackenzie Region home. He loves being amongst the incredible alpine landscape and beneath some of the darkest night skies on the planet.
After travelling through the UK, Europe & Asia, he became hooked on travel/outdoor adventure.
Not only does he love visiting many beautiful destinations, but also capturing the essence of those places to share with family and friends, in the hope of inspiring other people with his images.
Initially self-taught, after many years working as a photographer he has developed a diverse range of experience in cityscape, portraiture, commercial, landscape and astrophotography. His speciality now lies in creating large resolution panoramic Astro and landscape images.
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Jon Doe
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RACHEL ROBERTS - Director
ASTRO PANO & ADVANCED POST PROCESSING
I’m Rachel, from the beautiful West Coast of the South Island. I’m a wife, mum and B&B owner by day, and astrophotographer by night.
Being obsessed with the night sky since childhood and having a keen interest in photography, I decided to give astrophotography a go after being gifted my first DSLR from my legend of a husband. Mesmerised by the images of NZ’s world class astrophotographers, but not having a clue how to use my fancy new camera, I would sit for hours researching techniques, learning the basic functions of it and spending countless nights under the stars in the pursuit of producing epic images such as theirs.
From sleepless nights standing under the crispest, clearest skies on the planet soaking up the light from billions of distant suns, to the excitement of getting my images up on screen to process and make them come alive, I love everything about this genre of photography and look forward to sharing my knowledge with creative like minds.
DOUGLAS THORNE - Director
LANDSCAPE, WILDLIFE, ASTRO, WEDDINGS
Douglas is a photographer based in Te Anau, New Zealand. He specialises in Wildlife, Weddings, Real Estate, Commercial and Nature Photography.
"Doug says all forms of Photography I love. I studied digital media at Southern Institute of Technology and have been passionate about photography for over 12 years.
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I won the Otago Wildlife Photographer of the year 2017 and was a finalist in the Sony Alpha New Zealand and Australia competition for 2020 in the astrophotography category."