Wholly self-taught, Mark’s style of photography is influenced by his many years of experience in the feature film business, & with an eye for detail he strives to produce creative images of exceptional quality, no matter what the subject. Since he began to seriously focus on developing his photography skills over a decade ago, Mark has continuously worked on improving his craft, thriving on setting the bar ever higher and challenging himself to do better yet every time he sets out to shoot.

While his images portray a wide variety of subjects, in the past few years astrophotography in particular has captured Mark’s imagination and interest. He often ventures out to the darkest, most remote skies all around the country, enjoying the challenge of combining New Zealand’s striking landscapes with the ethereal beauty of the night sky in new, creative ways. This has led to international success with Mark being short-listed in the Astronomy Photographer of the Year every year from 2012 onwards, a finalist in the 2012 World Open of Photography, and 4th place in the 2014 International Earth and Sky Photo Competition, as well as having images published in various books and magazines.

Marks short film, ‘Full Moon Silhouettes‘ also gained him international acclaim after going viral online, and has been broadcast all over the world by the likes of CNN, The BBC, NASA and various other main stream media.

In 2013, Mark won the prestigious Astronomy Photographer of the Year. Not only did he win it overall, but Mark also won the Earth and Space category, and the People and Space category which had never been done before in the competitions history.

Since then, Mark has gone onto to sharing his passion and knowledge on the public speaking circuit.

One of the highlights of that was his well received TEDx talk in Christchurch, New Zealand in 2014.

Mark’s passion for his craft is tangible in each and every image, & he has enjoyed an enthusiastic response from the public, particularly on his Facebook page, but also on his website.

“Notes from the Stars” is a high-quality, hardcover book, written by ten award-winning world-class night landscape photographers, each teaching us about what they do best”

Each subject is covered from a personal perspective by an expert and acclaimed nightscape photographer – an authority and inspiration to many in the topic they chose to write about. Here’s some of the topics:

- Capturing the Northern Lights

- Shooting the Milky Way under the moonlight

- Night timelapse techniques

- Photographing meteor showers

- Composition and post-processing tips

- Creating deepscapes

- Exposure blends

- National Parks Nightscapes

- And more…

Our aim is to put in your hands the book every night photography enthusiast would love to read.

Why “Notes from the Stars”?

There’s many books and tutorials that teach nightscape photography techniques. However, no photographer can master every facet of nightscape photography, so readers are often left with useful but standard procedures and perhaps a taste of the author’s own take on all those techniques.

In Notes from the Stars you’ll go with Yuri Beletsky to capture airglow panoramas in Chile, accompany Wally Pacholka across US National Parks at night, watch Mark Gee doing his cool night timelapses, walk with Mikko Lagerstedt seeking one of a kind compositions, travel to Canada with Jack Fusco to shoot the Northern Lights, and much more!

That’s right! Notes from the Stars isn’t just ten lessons on “standard nightscape techniques” that use the voice of ten world-class nightscape photographers. Far from it, Notes from the Stars is as much about the topics it covers as it is about the authors themselves and their unique ways to carry out their craft.

Not only you will learn each technique from a true master on the topic, but you will also see how each author has adapted “standard procedures” to their own particular way of doing things, literally learning above and beyond what every other book teaches. This makes Notes from the Stars a great book for both novices and experts as well. That’s the spirit of the book: instructional, beautiful and personal!

Last, while the written content of the book is mostly instructional, Notes from the Stars also does its part as a tool to spread greater respect and love for our planet and our night sky, awareness about light pollution and finding our place in the Universe. Paraphrasing Dr. Carl Sagan, nightscape photography is a humbling experience. You can’t capture the beauty of a night scene and the night sky unless you recognize them as beautiful and earn their respect. Nightscape photographers are true ambassadors of the very things we photograph, and that message is also reflected in Notes from the Stars.