glowworms in new zealand.
Ever since i was a kid, i have been fascinated by glowworms. These bioluminescent worms or Arachnocampa luminosa, are technically a fungas gnat which doesn't sound quite as romantic, but they're beautiful either way.
​
My first time photographing them was back in 2018, with my old canon 800d. The photo turned out okay, nothing crazy, but it was a fun thing to try even if my gear wasn't really up to it.
​
Fast forward to 2025 and I tried it again. This time with some better equipment (and ironically an older camera). It seems like photographing glowworms is becoming something of a trend now, probably one that will continue to increase in popularity as the photos look otherworldly.
Here's a quick 30 second exposure of some glowworms i found on the side of a trail, my first image in years.
Pretty cool i thought, but still nothing crazy. This was a relatively small group of glowworms, but being nestled in the forest it was hard to get up close.
​
The next image i took was a few days later, at a site about 5 minutes drive from my house. My dad, sister and i went out for a walk at night to try and find the glowing worms, and we didn't have to go far.
This little grouping was slightly bigger, and it was pretty exciting to catch them on camera. I realized the next thing to do would be to find a real glowworm cave and take my best low light lenses. Unlorturnaly my camera is not ISO invariant, and has poor dynamic range, at least compared to newer full frame cameras. Regardless, i wanted to see what i could capture.
​
A week or so later and that's what i did. A friend and i drove a couple of hours to local underground cave, known for its amazing glowworm population. While the cave was fairly busy with people shining flashlights all over the walls, already you could see the thousands of soft turquoise lights.
All of the images from inside the cave were taken at night, when the crowds had mostly disappeared. The caves were eerily silent, the dripping water the only sound. It was also inky black inside the caves, you could not even see your hand in front of your face. I've spent a lot of time under some dark night skies, but this was on another level, literally underground hidden away from all lights except the glowworms.
​
Some regions of the cave were incredibly dense, with glowworms almost packed on top of each other. This image was probably my favorite of the bunch, peering straight up into the ceiling at these alien lights.
I also experimented a little with light painting, gently illuminating the caves with my flashlight to reveal some more details in the stalactites.
Right as we were about to head out of the cave and go home, we stumbled across what was perhaps the best section of the cave, right at the entrance. Somehow we missed it while walking in but there was a huge cavern with a ceiling full of bioluminescence, so bright you see the walls of the caves faintly glowing.
​
Unfortunately my widest lens didn't have an aperture capable of capturing the full scene, so i used my 28mm instead. One was a quick image of my friend standing up on a rock, which came out pretty neat but was incredibly noisy despite the flashlight. The next image was pointing straight up again at the ceiling, capturing all the glowworms in the roof cavern as closely as possible.
This visit to the cave was more experimental than anything, and while i was pretty happy to even capture the glowworms at all, i definitely want to come back sometime and try my hand at it again.
Update 17 May 2025.
While road tripping back from Mt Cook to Auckland, i visited by auntie on the west coast of the south island. An hour south of her house was the famous "Hokitika glowworm dell". Naturally we stopped off and took a couple of photos there.
Unfortunately the area was very busy, about 30 seconds walk from the main road. It was also fenced off so you couldn't get very close to the glowworms, but i set my camera up over the fence and took this single exposure.
