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Photography is a passion that usually starts early in life and my case was started with a simple gift of a camera.
At the age of 11, I was given an Instamatic Camera by my parents for Christmas. After finding it too expensive to get film processed, I decided to do it myself and setup a wardrobe as a darkroom. About six months after that, I was given an opportunity to go to the Auckland Star on work experience on Saturdays and School Holidays. Initially, I followed other photographers around on their assignments but very soon was able to cover my own assignments for the Auckland Star and 8 O clock newspaper
Aged 16
By the time I left school, I was a graded junior photographer in Press Photography. There were no vacancies for juniors at that time so I started a Commercial cadetship with a leading English Photographer, Cyril Taft. Freelancing from his studio was leading fashion photographer, Des Williams along with Bruce Benson and Neil Liversedge. Several years of building Room sets, Fashion sets, setting up large format Cameras for Architectural work and Still Life photography.
After two years at Illustrative I began an 18 months stint as a Portrait and Wedding Photographer with Primrose Hill Photography ( an offshoot of Christopher Bede Photography) followed with a little commercial work thrown in.
At the age of 19, I was offered a position as a "J1" (Junior) at the NZ Herald. Over the next four years, I would cover everything from Waitangi protests, Springbok buildup, General news, Sports, Features and Racing.
During this time, as a junior, I won several awards, one was Runner up in the Qantas Press Photographer of the Year awards.
in 1981, I left the Herald to have a break from Photography and brought into a Furniture factory with an emphasis on wood turning which was then a hobby.
After my 18 month break from Photography, I was offered work in Brisbane with The Brisbane Daily Sun. General newspaper work with a heavy emphasis on sport. I also did general news work and some fashion/page 3 girls.
Six months later, I joined the The Manly Daily Group. They had a stable of four suburban publications with a small team of Photographers covering all the northern suburbs of Sydney on a daily basis. Photographers often had in excess of 6-8 jobs a day each! Again sport, was a major component of the days work.
In late 1983, early 1984, the Auckland Star was restructuring. Jim Tucker, then editor, offered me work as a Senior Photographer and we returned to NZ.
I played a major role with the Auckland Star Fashion section which was very successful and also won another Qantas award.
The next 7 years were to see many changes... The 8 O clock and Saturday Star were to close, replaced by the Sunday Star. Change of ownership. NZ News to INL.. shift of building. Auckland Star to tabloid.
Major events covered over these years included: Whakatane Earthquake, Elections in 1984. Olympics in Korea, Coups in Fiji. World Cup Rugby. Commonwealth Games in Auckland.
During my last year at the Star, I was part time Illustrations editor of the Sunday Star (Done a week about with the Chief Photographer)
In 1991, the Auckland Star was restructured and after 5 years of redundancies with all the uncertainty that comes with this, the 5 th round was for volunteers. I volunteered and started freelancing using my redundancy payout as capital.
In 1991 I setup a primitive darkroom in a car case which later was demolished and a proper darkroom studio was built. This also included a fully equipped colour negative and transparency processing lab which enabled me to get optimal quality for my commercial clients. I had my own well equipped Darkroom/Studio and a full electronic editing suite. Scanning and sending pictures by modem to newspapers is now a regular event. Equipped for catalogue and small/medium sized still life... Kids fashion. Brochures, Calendars, In house publications, Magazine work and Public Relations anywhere...!
At home Studio incorporating the latest state of the art electronic studio lighting system. This equipment makes extensive use of Radio and Infra Red technology to make it extremely precise and very quick to use. Using this equipment early on for the Warehouse catalogues made it very cost effective for the Warehouse to produce the thousands of transparencies they needed for their product range and with good quality.
In 1996, the first practical Digital Cameras were released. This saw the complete change from film to Digital. The Colour lab equipment was all sold and the sink bench and plumbing converted to a nice clean Meltica bench for Computer equipment and printers. Although we kept one single film camera, it only ever saw about 3 rolls of film a year and since 2000 hasn’t seen any that I can remember!
In 2007, we moved to a new house which had room for our current well equipped portrait / still life studio for small products and people pictures. It also has a much larger office area to allow for extra printing facilities and a new much more powerful computerized Digital Laboratory.
Over the last few years (2004-2008) it has been a privilege to help out with judging the photographic awards for the NZ Sports Journalists Association. The entrants of these awards are Newspaper and Agency photographers shooting Sport and Adventure/Lifestyle photographs as professionals so it is a huge honour to be asked to do this.
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