Made in Wel­ling­ton is a spon­tan­eous, off-the-cuff doc­u­ment­ary pro­ject to intro­duce a newly formed group of Wel­ling­ton-based pho­to­graph­ers who are pas­sion­ate about using pho­to­graphy to doc­u­ment the world around them, and to learn about dif­fer­ent groups of people and cul­tures along the way.

Meet­ing on the first Fri­day of the month, Kai­titiro: Wel­ling­ton Doc­u­ment­ary Col­lect­ive aims to estab­lish a photographer’s col­lect­ive spe­cial­ising in report­age and social doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­graphy. It is a col­lab­or­at­ive pro­ject, provid­ing a shared space for mutu­al sup­port, cre­at­ing a for­um for pro­jects and ideas, and build­ing a plat­form to share resources, raise funds and show­case pho­to­graph­ic work.

The col­lect­ive aims to pro­duce indi­vidu­al and group work on top­ic­al issues, and to be a source of innov­at­ive and power­ful imagery, cre­at­ing dynam­ic and com­pel­ling visu­al stor­ies on social, cul­tur­al and envir­on­ment­al themes.

photoshelter.com/va/wdc

info@real-people.co.nz 

Caroline Atkinson

Hills Hats: Behind the scenes

If these pho­tos have a mis­sion, it is to give a behind-the-scenes peek into one of Wellington’s old­est – and still lead­ing – man­u­fac­tur­ers. Cap­tur­ing rarely viewed envir­on­ments and present­ing them in an authen­t­ic way, this is a pre­fect match for cel­eb­rat­ing the theme Made in Wel­ling­ton.

Step­ping foot in the fact­ory is like trav­el­ling back in time. I was over­come with the sense of, in the most respect­ful way, ‘the good old days’. Care­ful, unique, qual­ity crafts­man­ship. One hat at a time.

It may be a time-worn sew­ing machine or a stack of design­er hats, but whatever the point of focus these images pro­voke a range of feel­ings. For me, they include mys­tery, nos­tal­gia and loc­al pride.

Car­oline Atkin­son is a Wel­ling­ton-based pho­to­graph­er who par­tic­u­larly enjoys doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­graphy and work­ing with tra­di­tion­al pho­to­graph­ic meth­ods. She uses this same aes­thet­ic in her wed­ding pho­to­graphy busi­ness and pho­to­graphy classes.

Atkinson’s Hills Hats pro­ject was sparked by her pas­sion for vin­tage cloth­ing and the fash­ion industry, as well as her interest in what, where and how gar­ments are still being made in Wellington.

[info]Camera: Nikon D600 | Lens: SIGMA 35mm | Focal dis­tance: 35mm | Aper­ture: 1.4 | Speed: 1/20 to 1/60 [/info]

carolineatkinsonphotography.co.nz

 

Emmanuelle Charmant 

Deluxe Industries

 For this pro­ject, I met with and pho­to­graphed Bobby Crisp, a surf­board shaper at Deluxe Indus­tries in Island Bay. When Crisp opened the door of his work­shop, the dust tried to escape through every hole pos­sible, mak­ing it hard to breathe without cough­ing. “Wel­come to my work­shop!” he exclaimed as he took off his pro­tect­ive mask, still envel­oped in a cloud of saw­dust and prom­in­ently illu­min­ated by two white neon lights.

After at least 20 hours of hard work, the rough-edged wooden plank will be magic­ally trans­formed into a surf­board. Wheth­er surfers are crazy super­her­os fly­ing on waves, or laid­back long-boarders catch­ing an easy ride, this guy is a wiz­ard who makes dreams a reality.

Sand­ing, meas­ur­ing, sand­ing again: this place is magic. Dust swirls are mag­ni­fied by the light. Ges­tures are accur­ate, care­ful and pas­sion­ate. “To real­ise a wooden surf­board, you have to have a love affair with the mater­i­al,” says Crisp.

Even­tu­ally, the pat­tern design and res­in lay­ers will come. After fur­ther sand­ing, to smooth and blend any sur­face imper­fec­tion, Crisp’s hands finally give birth to objects coveted by surfers around the globe – all Made in Wel­ling­ton.

[info]Camera: Fuji X100 | Lens: 23mm, equi­val­ent to a 35mm fixed focal | Focal dis­tance: 23mm | Aper­ture: 8.0 | Speed: 1/125[/info]

 

www.emmanuellecharmant.com

 

Antony Kitchener

Courtenay Place 3am

Cour­tenay Place was my back-up plan if my oth­er pro­ject ideas failed to mater­i­al­ise in the four weeks we gave ourselves to devel­op this pro­ject. Shoot­ing on a Voigt­lander Rangefind­er cam­era and using black and white ISO 3200 film gave the images a gritty, doc­u­ment­ary qual­ity suit­able for the late-night hedon­ism and drunk­en, bois­ter­ous atmo­sphere that makes for a typ­ic­al week­end on Cour­tenay Place. The rangefind­er is a small manu­ally oper­ated cam­era ideally suited to can­did report­age-style pho­to­graphy where dis­cre­tion is required.

Ant­ony Kit­chen­er is a freel­ance pho­to­graph­er and pho­to­journ­al­ist who trained as a pho­to­graph­er with the Nation­al Coun­cil for the Train­ing of Journ­al­ists (NCTJ). He has a strong interest in doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­graphy, focus­ing on social, human­it­ari­an and envir­on­ment­al issues.

A selec­tion of Kitchener’s images won the Stu­dent Images of the Year for Excel­lence in Journ­al­ism award 2010, and he exhib­ited his photo-essays at Fed­er­a­tion Square in Mel­bourne, Aus­tralia, as part of the 2011 and 2012 Strip Bill­board ini­ti­at­ive on doc­u­ment­ary pho­to­graphy. Loc­al exhib­i­tions have focused on themes of home­less­ness, mar­gin­al­isa­tion and dissent.

[info]Camera: Voigt­lander Bessa R3A | Lens: Voigt­lander Nok­ton 40mm f1.4 | Aper­ture: 5.6 to 2.8 | Speed: 1/125 to 1/15[/info]

antonykitchener.com

 

Elias Rodriguez

Crazy, Otari-Wilton’s Bush

For this pro­ject, I wanted to fol­low my pas­sions. This image is taken from a long-term pro­ject that star­ted five months ago at Otari-Wilton’s Bush in Wel­ling­ton. Being a pho­to­graph­er with a pas­sion for the envir­on­ment, walk­ing through the bush with cam­era in hand is the per­fect set­ting for me.

The series of images from which this pic­ture are taken aim to cap­ture a cer­tain atmo­sphere – sub­lime, untamed nature. Tak­ing inspir­a­tion from early New Zea­l­and pho­to­graph­ers such as Frank A. Cox­head and D.L. Mundy, I took my $15 Trade Me-pur­chased 35mm cam­era and some rolls of black and white film, and fol­lowed streams into the bush. This is a side of Otari-Wilton’s Bush that people may have not seen before: there is remark­able nature in our own backyard.

[info]Camera: Nikon F‑55 | Lens: Nikon AF‑S DX Nikkor 18–55mm VR | Focal dis­tance: 24mm | Aper­ture: 5.6 | Speed: 1 second[/info]

eliasrodriguez.org

 

Mark Tantrum

St James Parking building, June

One recent pro­ject of mine has been doc­u­ment­ing adven­ture sports in Wel­ling­ton. Quite often these are rel­at­ively fringe groups that the gen­er­al pub­lic don’t know about. Parkour is one example that is alive and well in Wel­ling­ton, with a vibrant com­munity base and a nation­al organ­isa­tion, the New Zea­l­and Parkour Asso­ci­ation. I’m con­tinu­ing to work with the asso­ci­ation and am also in dis­cus­sion with oth­er groups like the slack­lin­ing [a kind of flex­ible tightrope] community.

I’ve covered a lot of the main­stream sports in New Zea­l­and. They are always a lot of fun, espe­cially work­ing with inter­na­tion­al sport­ing media, but I am inspired and amazed by the high levels of cre­ativ­ity and innov­a­tion in adven­ture sports. I love work­ing with the ath­letes and choos­ing areas of Wel­ling­ton CBD or sur­round­ing land­scapes to work with photographically.

It is great to keep aware­ness of these pur­suits high so that young people get out and try them. The Parkour com­munity are a great bunch of really intel­li­gent, caring and thought­ful people – I could think of a lot worse club cul­tures for young people to get involved with. For more inform­a­tion, see nzparkour.co.nz

[info]Camera: Nikon D3S | Lens: Nikkor 24–70mm | Focal dis­tance: 60mm | Aper­ture: 2.8 | Speed: 1/400[/info]

marktantrum.com