The veteran surfer had quit his Gold Coast hometown in Australia and joined Weta Digital after studying as a graphic designer and has since worked on films including The Hobbit, The Adventures of Tintin, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, King Kong and Avatar.
Gee said he had been taking photographs "for most of my life really' but had embraced the artform with renewed vigour after starting at the capital city company, where "there were so many other talented photographers who inspired me and got me back in to it".
His photographs today are captured in a dark sky environment in several long exposures using a digital SLR camera, he said, usually comprising time-lapse sessions of two-and-a-half hours apiece that each yield about 250 images.
"I set my shutter for 30 seconds and have quite a fast lens, and set the ISO really high, like 3200. I either have the camera on a tripod and shoot, or it's mounted on a motorised slider and takes a photo and moves, takes a photo and moves."
He said Wairarapa had been blessed with a dark sky more than equal to the internationally gold-rated Aoraki Mackenzie Dark Sky Reserve - the first and only such reserve in New Zealand.
"I'd definitely back any call to make Wairarapa a dark sky reserve. I'm surprised it hasn't already happened. I've been to Tekapo and taken astrophotography classes and spent a bit of time there, and yeah, it's really dark and amazing and everything but Wairarapa really is just dark - it would certainly qualify for it," he said.
"I've been doing this (astrophotography) off and on about six years and Wairarapa is pretty much where I spend most of my time. I do shoot around Wellington but there's nothing like Wairarapa. It's just so dark out there, especially Cape Palliser. It's miles from anywhere really, and miles from any light."
Gee said he had been exploring other areas along the Wairarapa coast as well, and was last week flown to the spine of the Tararua Ranges, from where he shot an image that stormed Twitter and Facebook.
"I knew I wanted to get up on top of the Tararuas and shoot and knew I wanted to get Wellington. But then I saw Wairarapa from up there and oh my god. It was all planned but I didn't realise I was going to get from Masterton to Martinborough in one photo."
Kapiti Heliworx flew him in after work for the project, he said, and he set up near a swampy stretch of Alpha Peak after strong winds ruled out his original location on Mt Hector.
He took a companion on the overnight project to also start shooting a self-funded promotional film for International Dark Sky Week that runs from April 20 to 26, and spent Thursday night shooting more footage for the film at Glenburn on the South Wairarapa coast.
He said this was the last week he could capture footage before the weather turned and the moon became too bright, although he plans on being "in Wairarapa somewhere" to shoot the total lunar eclipse on April 15.
Gee had in March held a dusk-to-dawn Wairarapa project with another fellow lensman, photographing women models beneath the same expanse of coastal sky where his world-beating image was captured.
"I had things in mind that I wanted to shoot but the winning shot was a bit of a happy accident. I'd set up a time-lapse on top of the lighthouse and went to go pick up my gear when I saw the Milky Way hanging really low over Cape Palliser, just off the lighthouse.
"I had no gear down below, so I ran up the 280 steps or whatever and back down again, set up my gear and got that shot. It was an all-night project shooting different things but that shot happened just before 5am."
Gee said he last year attended a workshop in Norway, where he was for the first time enthralled by the Northern Lights, and he plans on more travel.
"I want to do a lot more travelling and shooting in the Northern Hemisphere and more travelling around New Zealand. Maybe a bit of a road trip down the South Island some time this year and then some more overseas," he said.
"There's a lot more sky to conquer, a lot more sky to shoot."
For more from Mark Gee, go online to his website The Art of Night at www.markg.com.au
