About

I’ve been photographing the world for more than 25 years…

It all started back in 1994 with an Olympus film camera and light-sensitive paper. I’ve been hooked on photography ever since.

In 1999 I left New Zealand to pursue my career as a concert cellist, which took me everywhere from the farthest reaches of western China, through all of Europe, down to Patagonia in South America.

It was in Patagonian Chile, in 2011, where my photographic career started to supersede my musical one. My photos of Valdivia, a beautiful town in the Los Rios region, were picked up by National Geographic. They’ve since been seen many millions of times, been featured in major political campaigns, printed in their thousands, and used in advertising by everyone from large universities to artisan chocolate shops.

In 2017 I made the decision to return home to New Zealand, and to dedicate myself to photography full time.

I quickly discovered a real passion for teaching, something influenced no-doubt by my days as a music professor in Chile. This led to the founding of High Res Tours.

I particularly enjoy helping my students achieve technically difficult shots, especially in low-light situations. There’s nothing quite like spending an evening under the stars, or deep in a luminous glow-worm cave, with a bunch of like-minded camera enthusiasts.

I still do a lot of commercial work. I specalise in PR portraits for classical musicians. These photos are in constant use at most of the major concert halls and opera houses worldwide. In 1999, after much pressure from friends, I finally relented and started taking the occasional wedding portrait.

I shoot exclusively on Panasonic Lumix digital cameras (with the exception of the occasional roll of film, where I use a Hasselblad).

You can see my commercial work here: www.charlesbrooks.info and examples of my astro-photography and glow-worm photography in the gallery sections of this site.