What do you photograph?

Often people who I have just met, meaning well, of course, ask me this question. There is usually a second or so pause on my behalf, and probably, a slightly stricken look on my face making the enquirer fire out a couple of quick prompts as if in a play, landscape? people? for example.

I always wish that I could give them a simple answer, to help us both bridge the divide that exists at that point. Coal Miners of the West Coast would be a good one. Lighthouses of New Zealand is another. Samoan Fa'afafine is also one that I would put in there, because these third gender Samoan, hold some genuine photographic interest for me. I want to go to Samoa soon.

It's an opportunity; if I could speak Dalai Lama responses we would both be able to make progress towards our understanding of each other.

The photograph of the roots is to provide an example of how, if I was to describe literally what I photograph, might not be too helpful. In this case,‘I photograph tree roots’ does not illuminate too much. The real subject is behind this.

The Fingers Theme

This reminds me of a photo that I took of some roots, at Lepperton, an area 30 minutes drive from where I live in New Plymouth. The site was suggested to me. I will see if I can dig up the photo of them.

In this case the photo came about as a result of me babysitting my grand daughter in Auckland a few days ago. Rita, for that is her name, had a fever.

Taheke River

Here is another view of the river that was right below the Taheke Hotel where I lived.

You can see how the banks have completely altered their shape as a result of logging and cattle grazing. The sharp hooves of cattle chop up the banks and beds of streams and rivers and looging has silted the river up. Here in Taranaki we have a restoration programme where farmers are now required to fence the streams and creeks that run through their farms and plant the banks with native flora. There is so much water in Taranaki that we are talking about hundreds of kilometres. Fonterra are driving this campaign anxious about their clean green image.

What the story about these drums is I don't know. They appear to be empty. My father would have taken this photo from the concrete bridge that appears three or four posts back.

My Father the Boxer

My father was a boxer. Although he was not big he had boxing skills that made him a dangerous opponent. He needed it in areas like Taheke where many bar patrons got liquored up and wanted to fight. Bars had to close at 6 pm which may not have helped because as the afternoon wore on patrons increased the pace of their drinking knowing that when the bell rang at 6 o'clock there was to be no more alcohol served. There were certainly no bars or bottle stores there either. 6 o'clock was it.

Fights usually took place out on the grass in front of the hotel. The fights I remember were the ones involving my father. He would take out his top denture, put it on a shelf behind the bar for safe keeping, and then step outside to take part in a fist fight. I never saw him show fear and I never saw him defeated. He had fast hands and knew how to deliver a punch. It's a complex science, involving balance, speed and timing.


I don't know how often but he ran a boxing gym for local Maori. The gym was in the building
in the top left of this photo. Sadly, it has now gone.

My brother is on the left of the horse, hanging out with a friend. What the horse is thinking I'm not sure.

The gravel road just behind the horse is not someone's driveway but the main road north. At this time Taheke was about 5 and a half hours north of Auckland, now it is 3 and a half.

I was always impressed by the gym and was encouraged to learn about boxing. I believe that even the limited experience I had of it taught me something. In boxing there is an emphasis on stoicism, even if you're on the ropes and someone is thumping your head with their fists and you have a funny metallic taste in your mouth you have to keep thinking or else you're toast. You have to hang in there waiting for the opportunity to strike back. Even though this sort of stoicism is not talked about much now, increasingly I feel that there's something to be said for the quality.

More Family

Standing outside the Taheke Hotel, here I am with my mother, my father's father, and my sister. I'm the slightly disturbed looking one in the front, the short one.

Pater, as I had to call my grandfather, was someone I saw on very few occasions in my life. I only have a couple of images of him in my mind. He died not very many years after this photo was taken, in Gisborne, at the age of 88.

I have impressions though. He was dressed in a fashion I was not exposed to much. I don't remember him in anything else except a three piece suit. I remember how he was different, he was English, having emigrated here as a young man.

He was very strict and formal. Even the name, Pater, was formal. Strangest of all perhaps was that he liked to write poetry. Believe me, to meet a man who was proud of writing poetry was something of a mind bender for someone liked me who was being schooled in the cultural mores of the time. How a proper male should behave was clearly proscribed and strictly enforced. Homosexuals went to gaol.

Something else about him impressed me. He had an air of being somewhat educated. Apart from the priests, teachers, doctors, I didn't know anyone like this. If fact I have no idea what his education was like, or if his poetry was worthy, none is extant.

Somehow he influenced me though. I'm not sure how, perhaps he opened a window on a different world.

In this photo, I'm also interested in the dresses that my mother and sister are wearing. My guess is that Louisa, my mother had made them. She was extremely adept with her hands, and skilled with a sewing machine. When she left school she worked as a seamstress in Karangahape Rd in Auckland.

Bryan

Before the complaints department receives any more emails asking 'where are the horses' I thought that I would slip a couple more of my father's photos in and keep the horse lovers happy too. Anyway it's good to introduce you to some more members of the family.

This is my brother Bryan. It appears that our family mainly used horses as furniture but I assure you this wasn't the case.

This photo has some clues in it. The concrete bridge in the background spans the Taheke River, like an invading army it allowed roads to take over from the centuries old river transport that had prevailed.

On the other side of the river was Waima, a Maori community, you can see two or three houses in the photo. Beyond the right of this photo was their marae, and I don't know whether it was my imagination or not but I remember a couple of occasions when there was a tangi and I could hear women wailing, their voices carrying across the valley and the river.

Two of the Maori surnames that I remember from Waima were Panaho and Pehi. Here are 4 locals on a horse, a horse that still feels like eating fortunately. The river is in the background. Notice the mud on its legs.

I meant to tell you that sometimes I would see large mullet in the river, swimming over the shingly bottom.

The river was clear. Black fresh water mussels stuck out of the shingly bottom. Mysterious to me was being told that some Maori women at the time of giving birth would squat into ankle deep water and utilise the cleansing waters of the current. I hope that this is true because it's an attractive idea.

Taheke River

Alongside Taheke Hotel was a river, one that led all the way to the Hokianga harbour and out to the wide open ocean and beyond the horizon. By the time of this photo it had silted up, and willows taken over.

Yet it had been for all human settlers, for centuries, a major highway. Roads, including bridges changed it's significance within a few decades. The town of Taheke all but died. There was a two room school, a shop, the pub, a few private houses. There was however, in the surrounding hinterland a large population of Maori.

Here are four of them, they've been to my parent's pub and are heading home, carrying on board a keg of beer. (Click on photo to enlarge).

The waka in this photo has been preserved now, on display in one of the Hokianga towns, Opononi, or Rawene I think it is. I've only recently found out about this and I'm overdue for a Hokianga trip so I haven't seen it with my own eyes but I believe it to be true.

The character on the left is enjoying those wonderful slender willow tendrils. I still want to photograph them, especially trailing in the water when it is in flood. I've pursued the same look in seaweed, the way the swell moves it around and the leaves constantly rearrange themselves into positions that you just know will be mathematically perfect every time. It's the sort of thing that gives me a thrill.

There was an abundance of whitebait in the river, 4 gallon tins with number 8 wire handles, filled to maximum. As the whitebait season is just opening now I thought that I would include a whitebait photograph that I took a couple of years ago. I went whitebaiting with a friend in Southland and when I saw these in the bottom of a bucket with the sun shining in, I put this picture together. I seem to like those triangles of light coming in from the side.

I liked a friend's description “ the circle of life”.

Trunk

Please excuse me for putting aside my father's story for a days, I am in Auckland until Thursday and I don't have access to any more of the early photos at this point.but a photo came together together a couple of days ago and it might be relevant.

A few days ago, I decided to take a breather and do some work on the rather steep and ramshackle garden that I have in New Plymouth. As I was weeding these dead Nightshade plants, I began to be aware of the forest look of the long stalks. There was a little slippage in scale that appealed to me.

I've been looking at photographing the tree trunk for a couple of months now, ever since I bought it at a pet shop. It is a cover for an aquarium filter pump, something like that, and I'm working towards buying the rest of the parts necessary for setting up my first tropical aquarium, including the fish. I have cold water fish in three places here already but tropical is a step up. I want Neon Tetras because I like the way they swim in schools and I find that relaxing.

Anyway, as soon as I saw the tree I bought it and it has had a prominent home here in my studio since. Every day I admire it. To me it looked very photogenic but it wasn't until today when I saw those weeds that I saw a possible context for it.

Now I'll live with the photo for a little while, it's not there yet but I will perhaps print it up on some large paper, pin the print to the wall and let it share my space for while. Then I have to decide to reshoot or to let it go and move on, using it as another rung on the ladder. I

Three Horses

I'm continuing the story of my father and his horses, and our time when my parents
ran the Taheke Hotel in the Hokianga.

The first photo is a mystery in that we don't know the name of the child, but it does demonstrate how my father enjoyed working with horses. He would know that the horse would hold still while the child sat on its neck. I find it very interesting as a photograph, the composition is arresting for a start, quite apart from the unusual view of a horse's head. The white triangle that comes in from the left is strong too. I doubt if my father ever knew how good this photo was.

Here I am hanging on at the back, onto my sister Natalie. The little boy at the front is one of my cousins but without a bit of research I would only be guessing which one. When I look at this photo I can see why it seemed such an awful long way down at the time. I was right.

The last photo is another of Natalie, this time in the bar of the hotel. The smell of horse was a big part of my childhood and lo and behold I think that I can smell horses right now. It's warm and spicy.

Taheke, Hokianga

I was going to move onto other subjects but I changed my mind. I'm going to show you some more early photos and continue telling the story of my father.

In the Far North, Taheke Hotel was where my family lived in the late 40's. In the gumfields nearby there were wild horses. Maori would round them up and sell them and my father purchased some. One was called Five Bob because that's how much my father paid for it. He would tame the horses, many of them becoming extremely docile.

I don't know the name of this horse but I remember that the dog was called Whisky. I remember the day he died, his tongue was so pale it was almost white, and it lolled out of his mouth.

Below is the hotel. My bedroom was behind the dormer window on the right. The wallpaper in this long skinny room moved when the wind blew and I found this creepy, particularly at night. To make matters worse, I had picked up from the predominantly Maori population a scary belief in “spooks” to use the vernacular. It seemed that everything had a spirit, taniwha were everywhere and the world was a very dangerous place.

This is a view from the hotel, in this case showing cattle being driven along on their way
to the abattoir or as we euphemistically called it, the freezing works. The age of cattle drives is over, roads are too busy. Now cattle are trucked.

The drovers would often stop and have a beer and let their dogs and the cattle have a rest, and I remember being given an old stock whip by one of them which I kept for a long time. My father would do tricks with a stock whip so I was not discouraged from playing around with one myself. I can still use one with a certain amount of dexterity but I don't own one anymore

However it was knife throwing that I was best at. In fact I still have the knack of making a knife hit a target sharp end first and I practise whenever I can. Nothing is safe around this place.

The Last

For a while I've been writing about my father's photographs. For the time being at least, here is the last. This is a photograph of a picnic that was held in New Plymouth in the late 30's, down by the port.

It is known what this event was, apparently a large scale picnic. Notice the port in the background. And Paritutu, the plug of a volcano. The softer cone has over the aeons has eroded away. In New Zealand we use the Maori word for these structures: tokatoka. There is a famous one near Dargaville, Don Binney painted it. I don't have an up-to-date Maori dictionary, but I think that the new Maori word for helicopter is tokatoka, or tokotoko.

If you ever come to New Plymouth, I recommend that you climb to the top of Paritutu. It takes about 20 minutes, although some of it is a bit like stepaerobics. In preEuropean times there was a small Maori village up there. Probably not for everyday living, it would be a long way down to the letterbox, but more for somewhere to retreat to in the event of an attack.

Industry

Continuing on the same subject as the preceding posts, ie some background to the photographs that my father took around the port here in New Plymouth in the 1930's, here are four more. I particularly like the subject matter here. In fact a couple of these look like
photos that I have taken in the past. Or would like to take in the future.

The white building is the Breakwater, the hotel that my parent's ran.

There is a power station built on most distant part of this site now. A gas burning one.
In Taranaki we have oil and gas. Right by the hotel was the first oil field in New Zealand, at Moturoa. Electricity, oil and gas, see, you'd better be nice to us.

Seaman's Rest

I've been writing about how my father took some photos of the New Plymouth port area in the late 30's. The photographs have real historical value and files of the images are in the museum here.

In the upper photo the building is the Seaman's Rest. I always liked that name. I'm not sure if it's still there because since September 11th it's become much harder for the public to gain access to this area.

There are several photographs of ships. There would be people here who would able to identify all of them I would imagine and this work might follow. There is no name visible on this ship for example and it would be interesting to know more.

A few of the images show a naval vessel. A friend told me that there are in existence some photographs taken of a submarine visiting during this same period. I don't know who took them but I would like to see them.

More Birds

In the previous posting I wrote about my parents running the Breakwater Hotel in New Plymouth and I talked about how much my father loved birds.

A couple of weeks ago I went to a bird show here and took some snaps so I'm on a bit of a theme here or to put it more accurately for me, a seam. Kim Hill questioned me a bit about my process.
I postulated that in my experience, making new photos seemed to require periods of removing considerable overburden but then new images arrive suddenly, easily and quite quickly. It's not always like this of course but often. I hit a seam two years ago, when I went to Invercargill on a residency for 4 months. I'm feeling close to a seam now so I'm a little excited. I probably look like an old miner who thinks he can smell gold.

Anyway, back to Dad. Here are a couple of photos of him, the lower one definitely taken in the Breakwater Hotel, or as it used to be colloqially known, The Breakie. Incidentally it closed down a couple of years ago. Now it is empty.

The young girl is my sister Natalie. I don't know the parrot's name, when I arrived or “came along” it was not with our family anymore. I wished I'd asked my parents about it. Too late now.

PS Remember that a click will enlarge these photos. I recommend trying on the photo below. Then to the right of the hotel you will see a little tram emerge. Trams serviced New Plymouth at that time. One ran all the way to the port.

Port Taranaki

I've been thinking about my father, lately, quite often. His name was Milton Archibald Peryer. Born in 1904 he died in his 90's. When I was interviewed on radio recently, Kim Hill the interviewer, probed a little about my parents and I hedged. I regret not being more forthcoming. Of significance is that I understated how my parents were puzzled by my career right until they died, in fact my fathers last words to me were “Peter, are you still in the same job?”. My mother's approach was more commonly in the direction of “but is it worth you doing what you do, do you make enough money out of it”.

Surprisingly my father was quite a keen photographer himself.

In the late 30's he was publican at the Breakwater Hotel in New Plymouth and took many photos of the port. This is now the deepest port on the West Coast of NZ, but it hasn't always been that way. Early European settlers anchored offshore and were rowed in to land in small boats. In 1846 some of my relations were amongst them.

There was no breakwater then. Now there are two. The port has been going through development most of it's life and as it happens, there are very few photographs from the time my parents lived there. I imagine that ports weren't particularly high on people's subject matter list.

Puke Ariki, our museum now has files of these images and are going to show some in November.

The photo above shows the Breakwater Hotel. This area is now completely built up. Below is railway line being laid. What I notice is that in the left hand arched window there is a bird cage. My father loved birds, and had lots of them.

Steamed Up

I have a couple of little steam engines. Sometimes, especially when I am entertaining, I like to fire them up.

They have vivid personalities and can be run inside as long as you don't mind a bit of steam floating around. I quite like it on my face.

Here I am filling the boiler of one of them with water. It's still about 5 minutes away from being lit.

Not exactly dressed for the job I know.

Thank you Sarah for the photo.

Montana Penguins

A week or so ago I was at the Montana Book Awards. The memorable event was held at the Auckland Museum. Arriving a few minutes early I wandered over to the museum shop. I couldn't resist buying this little set of penguins. $23. I took them into the ceremony with me, to a bar afterwards, and eventually back to my accommodation in Freemans Bay.

Now I'm playing with them to see if there is a photo in there somewhere. These are a couple of very quick rough snaps taken at my studio in New Plymouth. Nothing there yet.

I've been interested in penguins for a long time. Here's photo I took last year in Invercargill.



And one I took at the Central Stories Museum in Alexandra, last year.