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Back in April 2010, pub­lish­er Jack Mar­tin, busi­ness man­ager Richard Ain­dow and edit­or Ben Christie launched this pub­lic­a­tion with the inten­tion of show­cas­ing the very best that Wel­ling­ton has to offer and telling the region’s stor­ies with style, wit and invention.

From the very begin­ning of the magazine, we have show­cased the tal­ents of some bril­liant pho­to­graph­ers and con­tin­ue to take great pride in the qual­ity of the work we com­mis­sion. I am con­tinu­ally astoun­ded at the superb work our pho­to­graph­ers deliv­er to us every month, elev­at­ing our words to new heights. These ten pho­to­graphs made me gasp, made me laugh, or made me cry, and I hope you’ll join me in applaud­ing the tal­ent and vis­ion that made them.

Of course, this is a per­son­al selec­tion — there were dozens of con­tenders and I hope you’ll get to see more of them when we cel­eb­rate our tenth birth­day in April 2020.

#1 Welly From Above (Daniel Allen)

1: In FishHead’s first issue, pho­to­graph­er Daniel Allen and edit­or Ben Christie took a heli­copter ride around the region and demon­strated that Wellington’s remark­able beauty is best seen from the air.

 

#12 Fish Out of Water (Alden Williams)

2: The redoubt­able writer and phil­an­throp­ist Jean Wat­son (who sadly passed away just after Christ­mas last year) was the sub­ject of Emily Bain’s ‘Fish Out of Water’ column in Feb­ru­ary 2012. This stun­ning por­trait is by Alden Williams.

 

Wellington Street Characters

3: Ant­ony Kit­chen­er took this shot of one of Wellington’s most famil­i­ar faces — the Lamb­ton Quay evan­gel­ist known only by the pseud­onym ‘Bob’ — for an art­icle on Wellington’s street char­ac­ters by Miri­am Rich­dale and Max Rash­brooke in the Janu­ary 2013 issue.

 

#30 CQ (Caroline Atkinson)

4: A photographer’s abil­ity to cap­ture someone’s char­ac­ter in a moment is demon­strated here with Car­oline Atkinson’s shot of Wel­ling­ton Phoenix mid­field­er Vince Lia for the Octo­ber 2013 edi­tion of ‘Cap­it­al Questions’.

 

2013_06_15

5: For a Decem­ber 2013 fea­ture called ‘Made in Wel­ling­ton’, Mark Tan­trum shot this pair of parkour enthu­si­asts at the James Smith park­ing building.

 

#34 Recipe (Dolly Rubiano)

6: Dolly Rubiano’s food pho­to­graphy nev­er ceases to make my mouth water, and this lus­cious shot of a her­it­age tomato, wild herb and goat’s cheese salad by Fox­glove chef Joshua Dodd (Feb­ru­ary 2014) is a per­fect example. Dolly lives in Mel­bourne now and is unable to vis­it loc­al res­taur­ants for us, but she con­tin­ues to cook, style and pho­to­graph Laura Vincent’s recipes for ‘My Kit­chen’ every month.

 

#35 City Lights (Matt Evans)

7: Patrick Bren­nan runs a suc­cess­ful Inter­net radio sta­tion from his Papakow­hai base­ment. Matt Evans pho­to­graphed him in full flight to illus­trate Max Rashbrooke’s ‘City Lights’ inter­view in March 2014.

 

#35 Kid-friendly Wellington (Steve Joll)

8: Steve Joll’s son Theo fea­tured through­out last year as Steve’s art­icles on what to do with your kids around Wel­ling­ton were road-tested by him and his pals. Here he is play­ing mini-golf at Carlucci Land with his mate Charlie (on the right) in our March 2014 issue.

 

2014_06_12 FishHead: Joy Cowley interview

9: Legendary author Joy Cow­ley has a woodturn­ing shop in her Wair­ar­apa gar­age, a fact we found out only when Graeme Tuck­ett and pho­to­graph­er Mark Tan­trum went to vis­it her for our July 2014 interview.

 

Portrait by Kane Feaver

10: Kane Feaver com­posed this won­der­ful por­trait of pin­ball enthu­si­ast Simon Hax­ton for Max Rashbrooke’s Feb­ru­ary 2015 ‘City Lights’ inter­view — the pic­ture was taken among the tables at Newtown’s Moon bar.