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A Favourite Landscape from New Zealand's Mackenzie Country

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A rusted barbed wire fence cuts across golden tussock grassland in New Zealand's Mackenzie Country, with the Southern Alps rising under a moody, toned sky
Mackenzie Country Barbed Wire Landscape — Golden Tussock, New Zealand

I took this one in New Zealand's Mackenzie Country, a stretch of high country I don't remember precisely enough to pin to a single back road any more — this was long before cameras recorded GPS data, and the details of exactly where I was standing that day have faded. What hasn't faded is how much I still like the photograph itself. I framed the landscape through a rusted barbed wire fence that cuts diagonally across the frame, golden tussock grass rolling out behind it toward a mountain range, all of it sitting under a heavy, toned sky that gives the whole scene a moody, almost brooding quality.

The Mackenzie Country takes its name from James Mackenzie, a sheep rustler who was captured in this same high country in 1855 after driving off around a thousand stolen sheep. He escaped custody more than once and became something of a folk hero in the retelling, and the basin and the pass through it still carry his name — along with a small memorial to him and his dog, Friday, at Mackenzie Pass. Geographically, it's New Zealand's largest intermontane basin, sitting in the Mackenzie and Waitaki Districts of South Canterbury, rimmed by the Southern Alps and dotted with the glacial lakes that feed the region's hydroelectric power. It's also home to Aoraki/Mount Cook, New Zealand's highest peak, and to some of the darkest night skies in the country, protected as part of the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve.

This is one of my favourite landscape photos from that part of the world — and I even have a print of it hanging in my own home, which isn't something I can say for every photo I've taken. There's nothing dramatic happening in it, no iconic landmark or famous view, just a working fence line and a vast, quiet sweep of high country grassland, and an emotional sense of moodines. Sometimes that's exactly the kind of image that holds up best over time.

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