Madge Snow (83), better known to her fellow ''blippers'' as Snowy, hosted a luncheon in her Beacon Point Rd garden for about 30 members of blipfoto.com, an online daily photo journal and social networking service.
Blipfoto requires users to take one photo a day documenting their lives and upload them to the website under a chosen pseudonym, enabling them to connect with photography enthusiasts worldwide.
''The wonderful thing is when we all met this weekend a lot of us didn't even know each other's christian names,'' Walking Wombat, aka Barb Wall (66), of Australia's Blue Mountains, said.
''You sort of hide behind your little pseudonym [on Blipfoto] ... and to me it was like meeting 30 pen friends that I've been communicating with.''
Some blippers attach words to their images, many of which have a running theme.
Mrs Snow has taken more than 400 photos solely of her garden since starting her Blipfoto ''hobby'' 16 months ago, but considers herself an amateur compared with other blippers.
''They're all great photographers and they've all got very fancy cameras. But I've only got the little iPhone.''
Images she took of last year's autumnal colours in her Wanaka garden caught the eye of Mrs Wall, with whom she regularly chatted online.
''Walking Wombat said `You know Snowy', she said, `I'm coming to see your garden next year', and I said `That's fine' ... and we decided we better have a Blip meet.''
Dubbed the ''Anzac Blip'' - complete with renditions of both the Australian and New Zealand national anthems - the weekend's gathering was the inaugural Australasian meet and ''probably one of the biggest Blip meets ever'', Mrs Wall said.
Attendees included one British and four Australian blippers, plus their partners, who came to Wanaka for their first face-to-face meeting with the New Zealand Blipfoto fraternity, six of whom live in the Wanaka area.
The timing of the gathering could not have been better, Mrs Snow said.
''They've hit the jackpot because the colours are so good. Oh they're beautiful.''
Mrs Wall agreed, and said there was ''nothing more photographic in New Zealand than Wanaka''. One image taken on Saturday by an Australian blipper of Wanaka's much-photographed, lake-bound willow tree in Roys Bay quickly became the No 1-ranked photo worldwide on the website, which attracts an average of 6000 new photos a day from users in more than 170 countries.
Mrs Wall said Blipfoto was a ''wonderful medium'' for sharing the best parts of life.
''You turn on a news broadcast and all you hear is tragedy, drama. But when you log on to Blip you see some of the most exquisite imagery of the world.''
The group had a barbecue in Albert Town yesterday and took photos of poplar trees along the Clutha River.
The Anzac Blip ends today, but more meets are being planned.
