Nature’s Pic Images Blog by Rob Suisted, well known New Zealand natural stock photographer

Frostfish massacre in Cook Strait

July 7th, 2023 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

An unseasonably calm winter’s day took me well offshore exploring by boat into Cook Strait where I witnessed and recorded a wildlife feeding frenzy not often seen, and it was included in a NZ Geographic article here: https://www.nzgeo.com/stories/frosty-reception/. In the water, New Zealand fur seals (Arctocephalus forsteri) were diving to catch Frostfish (Lepidopus caudatus), a very long almost snake like fish, but their length required the seal to bring the fish to the surface in order the thrash and rip them apart, taking several minutes per fish.

The splashing and commotion caused a large collection of Mollymawks (small albatrosses) to arrive and battle over any morsels flung from the grisly massacre taking place. > > > Continue reading : full post + comments > > >

Recent commissioned work – BRANZ Annual Report 2022

August 19th, 2022 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

A science background made shooting the BRANZ Annual Review an interesting undertaking. Meeting and capturing the work of many of our top building and materials scientists dealing with applied real world issues in the building industry was fascinating, and working alongside an experienced and capable team of in house designers, writers and publishers was satisfying. The final report we crafted has just been released here.

Below are a few example pages and a brief explanation of the design and photographic themes involved… > > > Continue reading : full post + comments > > >

Recent murals and splashbacks

August 16th, 2022 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We specialise in large image files for superior mural reproduction quality, especially in close viewing distance murals. Here are some recent examples clients have shared with us:

Hospital waiting room mural for calming influence. Awhitu Peninsula. Image ID: 53147

Spectacular glass splashback (printed by Thermaseal, Chch). Image ID: 62829

Kitchen splashback. Otago, New Zealand. Image ID: 63425

Laundry glass splashback. Tongariro National Park. Image ID: 37304

3rd photo committed to skin tattoo forever

August 1st, 2022 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We licensed our third photo for tattoo use recently, and our client shared the result, committing the photo to skin forever.

Original file is here, and the other tattoo photos are here.

Kitchen Splashbacks FTW

March 7th, 2022 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We do a lot of kitchen splashbacks, because we’re one of the few NZ image providers that specifically shoot massive panorama type files for high quality large images that can handle close viewing distances like kitchens. Here are a few that customers have shared with us -we love see final use images like these shared. Drop us a line if you need a quote, and we can also often help recommend high quality glass printers and installers.

: Image ID: 63425

: Image ID: 35832

: Image ID: 35832

: Image ID: 62849

: Image ID: 35038

: Image ID: 38118

: Image ID: 62578

: Image ID:

: Image ID: 5837

: Image ID: 37304

Cool office mural

November 16th, 2021 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We do a lot of large interior murals due to our very large file creation processes.

This one stood out today, printed on Contra Vision film (perforated window film often seen on buses) and applied to a large boardroom glass wall.

It looks so realistic that we wonder how many people might accidentally try to walk through it? Original photo, Nelson Lakes National Park track, at: https://www.naturespic.com/newzealand/image.asp?id=25963

Photographer of the Year finalist again

September 9th, 2021 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Finalist in the Photographer of the Year again with this frame recently taken to illustrate sea level rise.

“While documenting sea-level rise, Rob Suisted attempted to create an image that showed the built environment under attack at the coast. “Hence the focus on the dynamic battle of textures and energy in the foreground,” says Suisted, “while homes sit above as benign observers seeming oblivious to the changes happening.”
NZGP Click to go vote for your favourites amongst some outstanding work now

Kea splashback is cooking up a treat

June 8th, 2021 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We do a lot of kitchen splashbacks. Posting this one because we love our endemic native Kea, the true alpine expert, and this was a cool use.

Here’s the original photo file that was used to print direct to glass by Thermaseal in Christchurch with an advanced ceramic printer

Recent Story Portraits done

September 3rd, 2020 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Been a run of enjoyable story portraits for www.NZGeo.com recently.

NZ Story Portraits of, Ocean Mercier, Meng Foon, Linda Shum, Kirsten Wong with Gordon Wu

These are portraits of I’ll explain them in more detail below… > > > Continue reading : full post + comments > > >

Radio New Zealand Interview – PredatorFree 2050

January 20th, 2020 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Nice interview with Emile Donovan, Radio New Zealand, about recent projects, winning NZ photographer of the year, and a few other things we gassed on about. Audio link here:

NZ Geo assignment – Predator Free 2050

January 16th, 2020 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

My latest assignment for New Zealand Geographic Magazine. An in-depth look at the Predator Free 2050 initiative to rid NZ of introduced predators – being such a huge national initiative this was one of the largest articles the magazine has commissioned recently.

Visit NZ Geo to read the article online now. Otherwise, browse the gallery below to … > > > Continue reading : full post + comments > > >

Honoured to be award NZ Photographer of the Year

October 29th, 2019 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Very grateful to be awarded the honour of New Zealand Photographer of the year in the 2019/2020 NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year awards.

Here are most of the images entered.

Receiving award from sponsor Nikon NZ’s Richard Greasley. Photo Richard Robinson

Being interviewed on stage about my photo entries and the work behind the scenes. Photo Richard Robinson

The full display of winners can be seen here. The collection of best photography in NZ for 2019 – a must view: https://www.nzgeo.com/photography/photographer-of-the-year-2019-winners/

I’d like to give a big thank you to all the sponsors, and to New Zealand Geographic for hosting the give event in the photography calendar.

3 finalists in the NZ photographer of the Year awards

October 8th, 2019 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

A full 75% of my single entry images have placed in the NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year awards this year – three making it through.

Have a look through the great collection of other finalists this year. Grab a coffee and vote for your favs at: https://www.nzgeo.com/photography/finalists/

Individual images are

Dairy farmland in early morning autumn light. Dairy cows and herd grazing on lush pasture, Sanson, Manawatu District, Manawatu-Wanganui Region, New Zealand (NZ). (c) Rob Suisted. Image ID: 60985GL00

Canterbury plains agricultural mosaic landscape of dairy farming and cropping. Post wheat harvest stubble burn off, a normal management tool for preparing next planting. Aerial view, square format, Methven, Ashburton District, Canterbury Region, New Zealand (NZ) (c) Rob Suisted. Image ID: 58952GL00

Short-tailed bat (Mystacina tuberculata) flying at night, with mouth open indicating it’s using echolocation to navigate (lesser short-tailed bat – pekapeka-tou-poto), Pureora Forest, Waitomo District, Waikato Region, New Zealand (NZ). (c) Rob Suisted. Image ID: 60588LB00

Giant Kokopu, our rare native fish in camera,…and me on camera

June 26th, 2019 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Recently spent some time photographing our rare native Giant Kokopu fish, a secretive seldom seen species, and therefore, unknown to many. Here’s a video that Forest and Bird put together as part of a drive to increase awareness of the species, which shows some of the efforts to try and film them in their natural habitat. Grab a coffee and have a look at:

Have a look at more of our native fish here.
Many thanks to Forest and Bird for giving this species, and their plight, a big push.

Photo tribute to skin – NZ Falcon photo by Rob Suisted used in tattoo

March 24th, 2019 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We just received photos of another of Rob’s amazing iconic native NZ Falcon (Karearea) photos committed to skin permanently. We’re blown away how this tattoo has come out, and honoured to have Nick Aston consider using it.

Here’s a look at the other tattoo, and here are some of Rob Suisted’s amazing NZ native falcon images. This series of NZ falcon images has had some interesting uses by the way!

Fieldays 2018 murals

July 17th, 2018 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Fieldays 2018 was on Rob’s agenda this year, and well worth a stop in. It was awesome to see so many of our photographs printed as large murals.

We have a large selection of stock images that work well at massive sizes (shot on medium format digital and professionally stitched into massive files) which are suitable for quality exhibition backdrops, and branding displays.

Rob does commissioned photographs too, and we did a couple of massive murals for Honda Power & Marine this year. Can you spot the celebrity in one of them?

NZ’s first man of fishing checking out boat’s while Rob checks out a mural we created to sell outboard engines to commercial users

Nope, not Clark Gayford, although Rob let him know he wasn’t stalking him, he happened to be in shot of one of the professionally stitched panorama’s we did for Honda. Kate the Corgi made her debut appearance, a little know fact outside the breeding clubs, Corgi’s are a cattle herding dog breed.

Kate the Corgi – Rob’s fearsome cattle dog was added to the frame – a great distraction for kids while mum and dad talk gear, at Honda Power and Marine’s Fieldays stand

NIWA’s stand was very eye catching with their clever use of one of our large panorama files:

NIWA’s simple but beautifully designed stand created with an image we created to fit dimensions. Simply cropping a photo to shape and enlarging just ‘doesn’t cut the mustard’. Here we worked with the designer to create a huge image file to fit ratio specs – thereby minimising cropping and maximising output resolution

We had some great feedback from The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), who were very happy with the quality and feel of our images. It was great to work with Adam from Station Creative on the MPI stand this year, he’s very much into quality too, so a successful Fieldays for 2018 across the board.

Check out feedback we’re recieved from some of our mural clients.

A nice surprise. Serendipity, cash, and Sir Edmund Hillary

April 4th, 2018 § 4 comments - add yours

Was sorting through some of my late father’s (David Suisted) belongings and came across a school project he did on Edmund Hillary, a kid’s school note book full of newspaper clippings, as he followed the climb of Mt Everest in 1953. I found a hand written note, inside that old school project, to my father from Sir Edmund Hillary – written 29 years later on 29th July 1982, saying: “To David, Aim High! There is little virtue in easy victory. Ed Hillary“.

My dad’s school project from 1953, signed 29 years later by Sir Ed Hilliary

Then I found another gem – a crisp new $5 note with the image of Sir Ed. It was signed for me ‘To Robert, Ed Hillary’. Wow, Dad had asked Ed to do this in 1994. Pretty neat to have this memento from such a figure in history, and someone who has been an influence and hero in my life. It took a few moments for this to sink in. Then it dawned on me – the Reserve Bank approached me for about 20 photos to be used on the new bank notes back in 2016, and they used one of these (of Aoraki Mt Cook) to face up beside Sir Edmund Hillary. That mountain, with my name written over the top, has now been replaced by a photo taken by my own hand and eye. That seems pretty neat.

Clearly Dad had a huge man love for Sir Ed. He crossed paths with him a few times, especially while Sir Ed was the NZ high commissioner to India, as Dad was involved with foreign aid development work throughout Asia and India.

Looking back now it seems my father really took Sir Ed’s words, written in his childhood project book, to heart as he went on to be a well known and much loved champion of the arts (especially acting) in NZ, where he helped many others aim high and conquer their own ‘Everests’, including some of our best known and loved actors and directors.

I suspect Dad is also pretty chuffed that Sir Ed now looks at my version of our highest peak Aoraki Mt Cook every day in my wallet.

NZ Geographic feature done – NZ Land use

February 15th, 2018 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Been a manic but terribly exciting week on the F800GSA around NZ shooting another feature for New Zealand Geographic Magazine on land use in NZ.

I’ve learned a heck of a lot more about our big picture agriculture, appropriate land use, precision farming and adding value to our exports to get out of our traditional ‘commodities from the colonies’ history. Stay tuned for the next issue coming very soon – in fact real soon – I had to ride like the wind from the Manawatu late tonight to make deadline for press!

NZ Photographer of the Year Awards

December 22nd, 2017 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Success in the NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year awards. I entered a few in the aerial category and managed two finalists. Last week in Auckland, one of these won the big prize!

Rob Suisted proudly accepting his trophy from Richard Greasley of DJI / Lacklands, award sponsors. Photo by Richard Robinson

Here’s the image that won the award this year

An early winter sunset cast warm light over the landscape as Rob Suisted travelled past Mt Ruapehu. Suspecting the foothills might reveal interesting textures and forms when seen from above, he pulled over to capture the scene with a drone—a spur of the moment decision aided by familiarity with the landscape.

DJI AERIAL WINNER: ROB SUISTED: An early winter sunset cast warm light over the landscape as Rob Suisted travelled past Mt Ruapehu. Suspecting the foothills might reveal interesting textures and forms when seen from above, he pulled over to capture the scene with a drone—a spur of the moment decision aided by familiarity with the landscape.

If you’re in Auckland, it’s very well worth your time to go visit the beautiful NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year Awards Exhibition, prior to 25 Feb 2018.

Great to see my image HUGE inside Auckland Museum heralding the beautiful back lit exhibition by NZ Geo

Splashbacks – adding nature to our homes

December 8th, 2017 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Sharing a few recent client photos of installed glass splashbacks in kitchens and bathrooms that we commonly do.

We especially love the NZ kelp seaweed cell structure image used in a shower splashback (bottom left). Click on image for a closer look:

And currently we’re working on a very large 5 metre wide kitchen splash back that we think is a stunning use of graphics. Can’t wait to see final images of the install. A link to the image is here: https://www.naturespic.com/newzealand/image.asp?id=52320
It’s a massive file, over 190 megapixels, being a join of 5 medium format digital camera files, so will easily go the nearly 5 metre span at a close viewing distance (a critical factor with kitchen splashbacks). Click on image above for a closer look.

New book out this week

November 30th, 2017 § 1 comment - add yours

Excited to see our latest book project land in bookshops this week – our 17th book so far.

We’re giving one away FREE here if you’re keen ($55.00 value, and we’ll sign it too)? Check out more detail (or get yourself a copy) at our publisher’s website here.

Foxton’s Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom. And our murals

November 28th, 2017 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We were commissioned to create large murals for exhibition use at the new Foxton experience, Te Awahou Nieuwe Stroom. Given the large size and close viewing distances, we created specialist large files by stitching multiple medium format digital camera files to make truly huge files for stunning reproduction values. Here are some of the images used. Visit https://www.teawahou.com/Home. We worked with Workshop e, and they have photo credit for these images….

: Information centre murals

Office Murals – therapeutic workplaces

October 30th, 2017 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

We do a lot of office murals. Research shows* that people looking at images of nature, get almost the same therapeutic benefit as people actually being in nature. It’s no surprise we supply a lot of murals to the health sector, but some smart clients are catching on in the work place too. A few examples below:

: Office mural

: Office murals

You should consider using us for large murals as we’ve always invested in making the largest image and panorama files possible. Many of our files are over 1Gb in size, and panorama files are made from multiple files professionally stitched together (other sources often derive from heavily cropping and then enlarging – a crazy bad double down image deterioration).

We work with some of the best in the industry to create and output the best possible murals. We pride ourselves on the quality of the final product, and will work with you to navigate dimensions, ratios, cropping, dpi, colour matching etc, normally at no extra cost, to get the best outcomes. Drop us a line sometime.

Update: just seen a new install of very large murals into the Greater Wellington Regional Council offices. Kerri worked closely to get the right images to represent the region, but importantly, massive high quality files that would reproduce in a quality way at close viewing distances. The Wellington-Tararua Range image is stunning in detail – the benefit of multiple medium format digital SLR frames professionally joined. Have a look:

: Office mural

: Office mural

: Reception mural

Our work covers health murals, decor murals, trade murals, office murals and brand murals.

* = Research shows: https://www.sciencealert.com/just-looking-at-photos-of-nature-could-be-enough-to-lower-your-work-stress-levels & https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4690962/

The day I nearly killed Winston Peters by accident

October 24th, 2017 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

Back in 1999, as a young keen photog working on my first book, I wrote to Doug Kidd (Speaker of the House of Representatives) seeking permission to photograph MP’s sitting.

I had to don suit and tie to drag camera equipment and tripods into the Speaker’s Gallery. Some Minister’s of Parliament played up to the obvious arrival of a photographer. I also carried a heavy bag of medium format Bronica equipment, on which this photo was taken. BUT, then an event that still haunts me today happened…..

The Day I nearly accidentally sconed Winston Peters. The year was 1999.

As I finished and turned to leave, I shouldered my heavy medium format camera bag. The shoulder strap ripped off and the bag landed heavily on the handrail, teetering, before falling forwards to my feet. It could’ve gone the other way, and fallen 20 feet onto Winston Peters. It would have sconed him and probably made a thorough job of it. My blood ran cold as I headed off.

I sometimes wonder how things could’ve been different today. OSH hadn’t taken root then, so accidents were still happening in NZ; some could have even seen this as a good accident. One thing for sure would’ve been the publicity my book could’ve got – ‘the book that floored Winston’.

Exhibition: “Aotearoa New Zealand – The Story of New Zealand’s National Parks”, Beijing China

October 24th, 2017 § 0 comments, Add the 1st

A huge project has taken much of our time lately. This remarkable exhibition about NZ’s National Parks has opened in Beijing, China, carefully created by Landscope DesignLab at Lincoln University and driven by Dr Mick Abbott

Over 60 of our images were used in the exhibition, and many of them produced in large mural dimensions.

We work hard to create massive image files for large murals like this, from medium format digital cameras, often professionally stitched to make very large image files that are far superior to normal files. It’s a terrific honour to have those efforts recognised like this: