Fade To Gray: The Pictures

At age eleven I was given my first camera as a Christmas gift, a Kodak Instamatic. That was the start of a life-long addiction to photography. I have taken photographs ever since then, relishing in the excitement every time I picked up a packet of prints from the camera shop. My first real SLR camera was a Pentax Spotmatic F given to me by a friend in exchange for borrowing my trail bike (it never came back) around the age of 18. In 1979 I was offered a job as a news photographer with the Gisborne Herald. I did this for the next seven years. I was taught by Alan Peake how to not only take a useable news photo (in black and white) but to wind film, develop film, make prints and all the secret tricks of the darkroom trade. Wonderful years, all before colour photos where used in news papers that I am so grateful to have experienced. During this time I sought to understand the magic of photography, particularly from a news perspective. Many years later I found my true niche as a scenic photographer, seeking to show the world the special beauty of the Gisborne-East Cape region.

The Black & Whites

In the early 1980s I visited Wainui beachfront resident Arnold Butterworth to photograph him on what was believed to be his 104th birthday — his exact date of birth was, and remains, unknown. He lived in a ramshackle, overgrown cottage on the seaward side of Wairere Road. Though almost blind, he cared for himself and maintained an extensive vegetable garden on a section across the road. Butterworth had been a member of the constabulary that trekked through the Urewera ranges to arrest Rua Kēnana at the Ngāi Tūhoe settlement of Maungapōhatu in 1916. He died on 18 November 1986.

One of my favourite images which I thought captured a moment in time in the early 1980s when marijuana was the recreational drug of the moment.

Welcome to the Hotel California. Local Vance Gilgren poses for me outside Owen Williams caravan parked up on the Makorori beachfront in the summer of 1985.

My friends (from left) Ashley White, Allan Hill, Paul and Terry Downey and Basil Mann at the Tatapouri Hotel carpark ion the summer of 1972 . That's my 1958 FE Holden they're leaning against.

I captured this triptych of the newlywed Princess Diana inside Te Poho-o-Rawiri meeting house during her and Prince Charles’s 1983 visit to New Zealand. I've always thought the three images reflect the understated beauty and quiet grace that drew the world’s attention to Diana at that time.

In the mid 1980s I had left the Gisborne Herald and went to Auckland to relieve as a news photographer for the New Zealand Herald for a few weeks. My walk to work from a friends flat in Ponsonby took me through the Victoria Market each morning where I was attracted to the fresh faced beauty of this young woman who had a small silver jewellery stall. I plucked up the courage and asked if I could take her picture and she coyly consented. It wasn't until a few years later, after she had married New Zealand rugby league player and former All Black Matthew Ridge in 1988 ,that I realised I had photographed a very young Sally Ridge, who went on to become a leading celebrity in this country.

Talking about big celebrities — In a totally ironic juxtaposition, Prince Tui Teka's Rolls Royce Silver Shadow is parked up for a service at the Tokomaru Bay Motors garage on the East Coast in the early 1980s.

Across the road at the Tokomaru Bay dairy another East Coastie is equally proud of his 1950s model EIP Vauxhall. His name was Buster and he was a little bit shy but proud to pose with his well maintained set of wheels.

Well-known and much-loved around Gisborne, Mr Thodey was a true character of the town in the pre-millennium years. For a long period from the 1950s he owned and operated Thodey's Dairy on the corner of Gladstone and Roebuck Roads.

I was conscious of time passing when I attempted to capture the odd parade of  people who made the streets of Gisborne their home in the 1980s. I never got their names but I was fascinated by the manners and dress sense of these two gentlemen who were happy to smile for the camera.

One of the most intriguing characters to inhabit the streets of Gisborne in the 1980s was Buster Katae. Buster never really spoke to anyone but had this odd trick of stopping suddenly and looking skyward and then laughing when passersby followed his gaze.

From the same era I photographed this local young man with movie star looks who was often seen hanging about on Gladstone Road.

In the early 1980s surf magazine publisher and photographer Mike Spence gave me his Century 500mm lens. It enabled me to capture this once in a lifetime image of huge surf breaking way out in the centre of Poverty Bay in an offshore wind. The old pilot boat Takitimu was luckily on the spot to give the image its size perspective.

I never labelled myself as a 'surf photographer' but I am still stoked to this day with this one-click image of Stefan 'Teddy' Colbert performing what became his trademark backhand turn at the Stockroute, Wainui Beach, in the early 1980s. The picture was one of just a small number of surf shots I took with the Century 500 lens. I wish I had taken more.

I became drawn to photographing the empty beauty of the surf and the sea around Gisborne. This was one of my earliest scenic images that took me more and more in that direction.

An early 1980s mid-winter morning with the sun rising in the Tatapouri Headland cleft and Dean Thomas heading out to surf Makorori Point.

In the early 1980s I would experiment with low light photography at the River Bar, Gisborne's then number one music destination, by taking photographs of the bands in action. This image catches the raw talent and super exuberance of local guitarist and entertainer Nik Sim in full flight.

I made this composite in the darkroom (years before Photoshop!) of Ike Miringoarangi and Peter 'Spider' Tekira at the River Bar.

One thing led to another and as I started taking publicity images for local bands. I photographed the Innocent Dingos looking very cool in the alleyway behind the Odeon Theatre. From left — Tim and Peter Stewart, Trevor Herk, Shane Bollingford and Andrew Schollum.

An early photo of my flatmates in Island Bay, Wellington, 1972, after an alcohol-fuelled night of thievery. At this point we has transitioned from peace loving hippies to fledgling political anarchists. Later we all got good jobs and calmed down.

On the subject of anarchy, I set up this photograph of myself with Tim Shadbolt after I had had been subpoenaed to give evidence for the police in the case against a group of protesters after the Springbok Tour in Gisborne. Shadbolt was congratulating me because my eye-witness evidence and the photographs I was forced to hand over to the police actually  turn the tables on the prosecution and the protesters were acquitted.

I took this image of the Olympic K4 team training on the Waimata River in Gisborne in 1984. They went on to win gold medals. From left— Alan Thompson, Ian Ferguson, Paul Macdonald and Grant Bramwell with Ben Hutchings in the coach boat.

Always on the lookout for quirky subjects to snap, I spotted these two incongruous signs at the Settlers Cemetery near Makaraka.

One of my self-appointed roles through the '80s was to document the kids growing up in our Wainui Beach neighbourhood. From — left Dane Simpson, Heidi Clapham, Jared Drummond and Jay Papworth.

I took this photograph of Mel Gibson and film producer Roger Donaldson, and two of the Tahitian extras, at the wrap party for the movie 'The Bounty' which was partly filmed in Gisborne in 1984.  Despite the smile, Gibson took exception to me taking the photograph and  10 minutes later we were going at each other in a full on brawl in the bar of the Chalet Rendezvous restaurant, after which I was ejected via the front door.

On this occasion I was later commended for my sensitive eye after taking this image of Police Constable Nigel Hendricks assisting a frail old kuia at a major political hui at Te Araroa in the 1980s. I later got to know Hendricks well after he was savagely attack with a screw driver and maimed for life by the notorious criminal John Gillies in 1993.

As a news photographer I loved it best when there was real live news breaking such as this fire where I was able to position myself to get this front on  image of Gisborne fireman Pat Hogan in action. In those days the emergency services usually trusted the media to be self-reliantly safety aware enough to enter dangerous situations to get close-up pictures without hurting ourselves.

On most occasions we arrived at the scene of a disaster after the action was over. It became a necessary skill to be able to sensitively intrude on people's private grief in the aftermath such as setting up this image with the couple who had lost everything in a house fire at Waipiro Bay the night before.

There wasn't hard news happening everyday in my seven years as a news photographer and in those days we were sent out-and-about to look for pictures that could, with a clever caption, to fill space on the news pages. In summer, pictures at the local beaches were deemed news-worthy enough to illustrate a 'hot summer's day in Gisborne'. It became add-on photography job skill to learn how to nicely approach girls in this manner without anything 'sleazy' being inferred.