Courtesy of Dominion Post, March 3 2006
by Mark Amery

It was with a little relief this week that I read in this newspaper French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand - the creator of the festival exhibition Earth from Above in Wellington's new Waitangi Park - state, "I'm not an artist, I'm only a witness." In a time in New Zealand when it can seem like every second serious photographer wishes to claim the title of artist for their non-commercial projects, Arthus-Bertrand's humility is welcome.

Image: Derek Henderson's Terrible Boredom of Paradise is at PatakaCourtesy of Dominion Post, March 3 2006
by Mark Amery

It was with a little relief this week that I read in this newspaper French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand - the creator of the festival exhibition Earth from Above in Wellington's new Waitangi Park - state, "I'm not an artist, I'm only a witness." In a time in New Zealand when it can seem like every second serious photographer wishes to claim the title of artist for their non-commercial projects, Arthus-Bertrand's humility is welcome.

Image: Derek Henderson's Terrible Boredom of Paradise is at PatakaFor as beautiful, as marvellous and as awe-inspiring as these abstract details of the earth's surface are (a sublime for a world in which everyone, through television and air travel, is a world traveller), they look to engender little other mystery than wonder.

Arthus-Bertrand has a great clarity of vision, but he doesn't pretend to present the complexity that in any form of art sees us ask questions or allows us to introduce our own drama - that empowers us to see that right and wrong aren't always clear.

I was one of the very many over the International Arts Festival's opening weekend in the park moving from one large colour image to another, sweetened up by the National Geographic beauty before switching to the text to grasp how like every individual I have some responsibility for ensuring the world's stays a beautiful place. Like a great big coffee table book made social promenade, Earth From Above sees us flick from one image to another, with no illusion we'll find deeper meaning the longer we linger.

I'd suggest New Zealand's Derek Henderson is also more witness than artist. Best known for his fashion work, this accomplished London-based photographer also has clarity of vision, but not necessarily anything that demanding to say.

His book and exhibition The Terrible Boredom of Paradise is a collection of landscape photographs taken in a drive around New Zealand, from Southland to Northland. The publicity material states the trip as four and a half months, but the actual dates included in the titles of the works - mid-February to late April 2004 - better emphasise the photographer's fly-by perspective. Each image is taken by the side of the road, with a crucial distance between photographer and community firmly maintained.

The cute but slightly pretentious title succinctly states Henderson's viewpoint. His principal focus is the domestic ordinariness of living in some pretty remote places in this country. He's at his best capturing the out-of-place charm of residences in Southland or the King Country.

There's a beguiling banality and matter-of-factness at play here, a smart articulation of the spaces between landscape and habitation. Beyond that however there's something a little staged in the selectiveness of there being a complete absence of cars or people, and prevalence of power and phone lines. The suggestion is that the population are indeed bored - inside on-line or in front of the telly. There's something slightly patronising about this coming from a photographer winging through; and its something we've seen captured in countless movies before.

It's an interesting counter to the very social encounters captured in rural environments by Ans Westra, or by Peter Black, snapping out his car window in the Moving Pictures series. Smart as Henderson's work is, I left wishing he'd bothered to knock on some of the doors he took photographs of.

It's much harder to flick through the pages of Lara Strongman and Hannah Holm's recently published Contemporary New Zealand Photographers. The twenty photographers in this book and accompanying exhibition may also by and large specialise in a contemporary cool distance from subject, but there's always a flickering sense of mystery and engagement in complex ideas that marks these photographers out as fine artists.

Indeed its interesting the word 'artists' is absent from the title, given many strong photographers who have no pretension to such a label miss out. But this is a small quibble. While with only twenty artists selected many will howl over their favourite few who are missing, Strongman and Holm have gone for clear proven quality across a range of experience, with a focus on artists currently actively exhibiting.

It's just a shame that a larger exhibition wasn't possible for such a significant project. Only an image each has been selected for all but one of the twenty artists (most of whom tend to work in series) and the exhibition is placed in the smallest of Pataka's exhibition spaces. It might provide an interesting quick gauge of the relationships between contemporary photographic artists, but it doesn't encourage the time to be spent that the art demands.

Earth From Above, Yann Arthus-Bertrand, Waitangi Park, until March
The Terrible Boredom of Paradise, Derek Henderson, Pataka, until May 28
Contemporary New Zealand Photographers, Pataka, until April 30