A group of eight enthusiast amateur photographers might have been spotted taking pictures about the city over the past four days, as New Zealand Photography Workshops hosted its latest tour in the South.
Tutor Richard Young, of Wanaka, said the majority of the company’s bookings were still from New Zealand.
Since the transtasman travel bubble had opened it had started to get inquiries from Australia, but these had yet to translate to bookings.
That was no drama, however, as tours throughout New Zealand had been booked "back-to-back" for the past two months.
"We’re quite lucky ... normally a lot of clients are from New Zealand anyway."
The business offers a nine-day wildlife photography tour which spends four days on the Otago Peninsula before visiting the Catlins and Stewart Island at a cost of $8600.
The tours were tailored for photography enthusiasts who liked to travel in style, with luxury accommodation at Larnach Castle, chartered boat trips, a private yellow-eyed penguin tour and professional photography tuition throughout all parts of the package.
Participants also got to choose two of the favourite images they had taken to be turned into high-resolution prints.
The Otago Peninsula was one of the highlights of the tour, Mr Young said.
"Just the variety of wildlife that’s out here on the peninsula and also the abundance of it is quite amazing."
Customers often returned for multiple tours, which were focused on improving photographic skills. Seeing the progress of their customers was one of the most rewarding parts of the job , Mr Young said.
"We recently put together a photography exhibition up in Wellington and we invited some of our clients... it was great to get [them] through to that next level."
Peter Jones, of Auckland, was on his seventh tour with the company and said his personal highlight was a boat trip to see albatrosses.
"You could almost touch them ... they were so close and personal."
- By Andrew Marshall
