Christian Heinegg’s 1975 Land March photos capture a pivotal moment in our history.
Six years ago, Edith Amituanai visited a west Auckland park to find a group of siren cars blasting out the kind of music played in island nightclubs. Now, she’s practically a member of the Switch Hittaz. Sports stadiums would wish for the same atmosphere as a siren battle, she says: “There’s a lot of joy in it.”
Skateboarding photographer turned commercial shooter Mark Barber didn’t expect to find himself on a mining induction course for a job, but he’s relishing the glimpses of Auckland under construction as he documents the City Rail Link.
One town, five days, 21 photographers.
The fifth issue of New Zealand Geographic, published on the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Waitangi, began with an observation that “differences were not understood, respect not offered, deals not honoured, wrongs not righted and, for many, a corroding ignorance widens the gulf”. Thirty-two years later, those words are still accurate, so we asked ourselves how we could do better as a media outlet to address the widening gulf and bravely confront some of the questions still vexing New Zealand society. We turned to writer and author Nic Low (Ngāi Tahu), funded by NZ On Air’s Public Interest Journalism initiative, as a sort of navigator to help steer the waka through these difficult seas. We set out priorities. Developing Māori journalism talent is critical, but so is the careful, considerate, respectful explanation of what is meant by rangatiratanga, how co-governance might be relevant, how iwi can balance commercial priorities with kaitiakitanga and how to close the yawning faultlines created by the trauma of colonisation. “Luckily these aren’t uncharted seas,” says Low. “Māori writers, thinkers and leaders have had to grapple with these questions since before the time of Te Tiriti, so there’s generations of matauranga to draw on. My small part is to try to bring Māori voices and perspectives into New Zealand Geographic in substantial ways, give people the space to tell their stories, and provide some of the history and context needed so these issues make sense.” A picture is worth a thousand data points In 2008, Edith Woischin and Timo Franz went on their big OE, exploring surf beaches around the Pacific before arriving in New Zealand. Here, they co-founded Dumpark, an agency specialising in data visualisation and infographics. From mapping oil spills and plastic pollution to reporting on social development and human rights, their work involves making complex information intelligible. This issue, they took up the challenge of transforming sea-level rise data into visualisations for the story A map of the future. The long reach of war Tatsiana Chypsanava’s multi-stop journey to her present-day home of Nelson has encompassed being a dance student in Belarus and a cocoa farmer in Brazil. Now, she’s a photojournalist. With family in Belarus, Ukraine and Russia, Tatsiana has first-hand experience of how much the conflict in Ukraine is affecting Kiwis with roots in the region. It grew into this issue’s story about how authorities overseas can intimidate or crack down from afar on dissent. Hold still As a 12-year-old, Becki Moss won a camera at the Fieldays biosecurity tent, then taught herself photography from the online community Flickr. From the age of 14 onwards she was spending summers shooting weddings, and eventually, she quit her science degree to freelance full-time. In Wellington for a contract, she began documenting the local drag scene, and continued to photograph the LGBTIQA+ community over the course of several years—a project that was part of the portfolio that won her Young Photographer of the Year in 2020. Much of her work touches on invisible chronic illnesses—such as her story Stay Home Club.
If you had looked in the New Zealand Geographic office fridge in the summer of 2018 you would have found, next to the beer and the old film, a carefully wrapped plastic bag containing half a dozen transmitting GPS tags. Each one was worth thousands of dollars, and each was destined to be attached to a manta ray. Except no one knew where to find a manta ray. Department of Conservation marine scientist Clinton Duffy and Conservation International’s Mark Erdmann had assembled enough sightings of manta rays in New Zealand waters to know they visited. But the observations were spread from Cape Brett to Cape Colville, right on the edge of New Zealand’s territorial limit. Neither Duffy nor Erdmann could summon funding to investigate further at that time, so they were riding along on other boats doing other things—such as on photoshoots with New Zealand Geographic. It took a year to get the first tag into a manta ray, but then the animal immediately set a record for diving. By 2020, Erdmann had his own boat, and photojournalist Richie Robinson joined him to document the manta ray search. It involved a lot more looking than it did photographing. Richie spent 20 days on the water across two summers searching for manta rays before he was able to photograph one underwater. (Journalist Kate Evans, on the other hand, saw one on her third day.) All up, this issue’s cover story represents close to a month on the water for Richie. As this issue went to press, he was still out looking for manta rays—and not finding any. “I’m back to thinking mantas don’t exist,” he says.
Arie Spyksma maps the seafloor to figure out how the underwater environment is changing.
Lottie Hedley shoots a New Zealand Geographic story remotely—a first for the magazine.
Modifying a camera to see like a bird.
Richard Robinson chases a fish around New Zealand and the Pacific.
From cats to conspiracy theories, Hayden Donnell explores how our context affects us.
And fixing things that might appear unfixable.
Rob Suisted figured he was in for an easy assignment. His subjects had other ideas.
A journalist’s cetacean counterpart.
This magazine is a small miracle.
Bill Morris toured the South Island listening to the stories of skeletons.
Brett Phibbs takes on the essential service of documenting an unprecedented month in New Zealand history.
New Zealand Geographic publisher James Frankham on documenting Whakaari/White Island.
Talman Madsen fell in love with the stars before photography.
This issue’s feature on fishing was 12 months in the making.
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