My name is Toni Hardman, I am a photographer based in New Zealand. The visual and artistry of my photographs are born of a keen eye for the many moods and colours of what I see through my camera. I see and believe that there is beauty in everything, I hope these shines throughout in my work.
Thank you for having a look at my photographic art. Explore, consider, and I hope you take something with you. This is the world through my eyes. These photographs do not arise from any desire to see the world through a camera lens, but rather from my deep passion for the beauty of people, animals and nature. Many of my images are used in my other passion for marketing & design. It has shaped every aspect of my life. I wish to show you the amazing, beautiful and powerful forces that a mere image can create.
Through these photographs I express my feelings for the locations I visit and the wonders of the life that I encounter along the way. With these photographs I attempt to bring my experiences of my world to the viewer. Photography is infinite. I don’t need to go far. These images are all taken in New Zealand, most often right here in Southland. It’s not about where you are, but how you see.
A camera alone will never capture life as we can observe it with all our senses. I believe a great photograph is not merely capturing the scene, its capturing the essence of the subject at that moment in time and delivering it to the viewer with the goal being to evoke an emotional response. My camera is one of the tools I use to achieve my final results, the images you see here. My processing involves meticulous attention to detail in today’s digital darkroom to fine tune, optimize and adjust etc. to better present to you the experience I felt in being there myself.
The images you see here have been created with digital formats, presently, I shoot with a Canon 7D camera all the time with a range of Canon lenses. I like 90% or more of all professional digital photographers shoot in RAW. The advantages are simple. It’s like having every type or combination of film and almost every filter from which to choose to apply to any image. My RAW images are optimized of course in Canon Digital Photo Professional, to pull out the best possible colours, contrasts, details, tonalities, luminosity, etc. I then import the image to Adobe Creative Suite, where additional optimization takes place, including spot removal, digital blending, subject isolation and background removal etc… Anyone who thinks of digital photography as easy, simply does not understand these processes and the precision with which they must be executed in-camera as well as in processing.
Thank you for taking this journey with me today. Stay Focused!