{"id":450358,"date":"2026-05-29T01:43:15","date_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:43:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450358\/"},"modified":"2026-05-29T01:43:15","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T01:43:15","slug":"absolutely-spectacular-photographer-blown-away-by-bioluminesence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/450358\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Absolutely spectacular’: Photographer blown away by bioluminesence"},"content":{"rendered":"

A nature photographer said the bioluminescent display he captured north of Auckland on Thursday night was “absolutely spectacular to the naked eye”.<\/p>\n

Matthew Davison said he took the photos between 6.30pm and 8.30pm after driving around the Whangapar\u0101oa Peninsula in search of a good viewing spot. <\/p>\n

Davison, who has photographed the phenomenon before<\/a>, said the display at the Shakespear Regional Park was definitely one of the better scenes he’d captured. <\/p>\n

“What really blew me away was the sheer volume of sparkles. Millions of them completely blanketing the beach and rocks,” said Davison. <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(Source: Matthew Davison )<\/p>\n

Previously, Davison shared that as an amateur nature photographer he’s seen the phenomenon six or seven times, out on boats or kayaks, in the Bay of Islands and on the east coast north of Auckland.<\/p>\n

The 37-year-old said the Whangapar\u0101oa Peninsula seemed to be a hot spot for the phenomenon.<\/p>\n

\"Whangaparāoa<\/p>\n

Whangapar\u0101oa is a hot spot for these kind of events. (Source: Matthew Davison )<\/p>\n

Scenes such as this were more common in the warmer months. <\/p>\n

Dr Mary Sewell, a marine biologist at Auckland University, said “bioluminescence like this is pretty common to see around New Zealand during the summer”.<\/p>\n

“The bioluminescence is produced by an enzyme system (luciferin\/luciferase) which emits light and is also used by other organisms like bacteria and fireflies.”<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

An enzyme system causes the event. (Source: Matthew Davison )<\/p>\n

Sewell said the reaction usually occurred when movement disturbed the enzyme, be it wind, waves or humans. <\/p>\n

\u201cUsually, you have to splash around a bit, or turn on a boat motor, or go kayaking or something to actually see it.”<\/p>\n

It was unknown what made this Thursday’s display so strong. <\/p>\n

\"Cellphone<\/p>\n

Cellphone cameras are not sufficient to capture the bioluminesence. <\/p>\n

The images were captured on Sony Camera and tripod. <\/p>\n

Davison previously advised other amateurs that a cellphone-camera wouldn’t record the phenomenon so clearly. “You do need to have a proper camera, lens, and tripod, in order to capture it properly.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven if you want to try to capture it on a cellphone, you need to have a tripod because it just comes out as a blurry mess without one, even if you can get a small tripod, it will make the shot a lot stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A nature photographer said the bioluminescent display he captured north of Auckland on Thursday night was “absolutely spectacular…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":450359,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[442,498,499,500,51,501,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-450358","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-artsdesign","tag-auckland","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450358","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=450358"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/450358\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/450359"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=450358"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=450358"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=450358"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}