The Devonport Flagstaff Page 18
Interview
November 27, 2015
New Zealand people and landscapes in Guthrie’s focus Photographer Alistair Guthrie makes an impression on travellers arriving in New Zealand. His large-scale photographs line the walls of the arrivals hall at Auckland International Airport. This year, Guthrie focused on people, taking portraits of New Zealand refugees. He spoke to Maire Vieth. During 25 years as a professional photographer, Alistair Guthrie has taken many, often personal, portraits of prominent New Zealanders – artists, prime ministers and sports stars alike. Guthrie’s recent, almost disturbingly intimate shots of John Campbell for Metro magazine are a case in point. They reveal the former TV3 anchor after he lost his spot in front of the TV camera. The familiar face beaming out as the Campbell Live frontman is tired. The cheeks once held up by his decades-old camera smile hang slack. “I know John a bit and had an inkling that he was coming out of a downer period of time,” says Guthrie. “I wanted to shoot it kind of moody and simple. I had a look at a couple of books of old shooters whose work I have always liked and one image by Irving Penn stuck in my mind: Truman Capote with his head down and his glasses up, just a moment in time that caught his whole way.” “So I put up a little light in the studio, a grey background, put a chair there and a thing John could lean on. We shot for maybe an hour and didn’t change anything and it just came out like this, after we had talked for an hour or so about music and things, yakety yak,” he says. Guthrie loves to talk on the job. “I talk to the people I photograph, all of them, all the time and about everything. I am generally really curious about what or who I shoot, landscape or person,” he says. Or refugees. “They are just people like you and I and nothing to be afraid of. We are all ultimately from somewhere. Over the last few weeks Guthrie has taken photographs of an Auschwitz survivor who arrived in New Zealand 55 years ago, a Burmese couple who met in a refugee camp and are new to A compassionate eye for people… Alistair Guthrie the country, and a Somalian neighbour of Guthrie didn’t use a digital camera until Guthrie has been surrounded by phohis. The photos were taken as part of a project with refugee advocate Tracey Barnettt. tography all his life and has seen the 2007. “I just didn’t think the early cameras profession evolve. His father Rowan had were that good. I bought my first digital An exhibition is likely next year. taken aerial shots for the air force during Nikon because I smashed my lovely old the Second World War, and in 1948 set up Hasselblad off a tripod and there was no film a photography studio in New Plymouth with camera to replace it with anymore,” he says. He has never looked back. The arrival of Roy Charters. “There wouldn’t be many people in the digital cameras and iPhones has moved the Taranaki region who didn’t have their wed- craft away from professionals to amateurs, ding or portraits photographed by Charters says Guthrie. “It’s been a real democratisaand Guthrie Associates. The hospice nurse tion. Photography has become so accessible who looked after him as he died in 2007 and imagery so prevalent. I embrace it and had her wedding photos taken by him, as have fears about it because it has completely destroyed the industry in a way,” he says. had her parents,” Guthrie says. Guthrie says of technology. “You’ve “My dad started out painting emulsion on a glass plate and his exposure was a cap on got to know it (technology) to forget it so a lens he would take on and off. I remem- you can concentrate what you are actually ber how my dad retouched negatives and seeing,” he says. www.scapetech.co.nz Curiosity is his compass. “A lot is about painted colour on them. And then the first scapetech@clear.net.nz colour machines they got to process colour walking up to what you’re shooting and having a look over the fence, wondering what’s film and printing colour prints.”