Andrew Cornaga is the king of New Zealand sports photography. He is the founding director of the Photosport agency, and has twice been named New Zealand sports journalist of the year. Hayden Meikle tracks him down.
Hayden Meikle: What's your background? Where did you grow up and go to school?
Andrew Cornaga: Just in Auckland. St Kentigern College.
HM: The surname, Cornaga - where does that come from?
AC: Italian. I'm still waiting for my Dad to finish the family tree.
He says he'll do it but he keeps hitting stumbling blocks every time he gets to a website he has to pay for.
A couple of Italian brothers came out to New Zealand at the turn of the century.
My namesake was my great-uncle, who was killed in World War 1, at the Somme.
We actually went to his grave site when we were in France in 2007.
HM: Did you play sport as a kid?
AC: My Dad was into athletics for most of his life, so we grew up around the old Pan-Am track series, following John Walker.
We were getting up in the middle of the night to watch Allison Roe win marathons, stuff like that.
I played a little bit of cricket at school but that was about the extent of my activity.
HM: Did you get the photography bug at a young age?
AC: Yes and no.
It was never anything too serious.
I kept photo albums, and had funny little cameras.
I had the Kodak Discman, which was quite an inventive little camera at the time.
I never really had the idea to make photography my profession.
HM: When did that become a reality?
AC: When I left school, I was looking for something to do.
There was a job advertised in a black-and-white lab in the city.
Being a receptionist, basically - a dogsbody.
It was a cool little spot.
I rang the guy, Bruce Jarvis, told him I really wanted the job, and he hired me.
Anthony Phelps was a sports photographer freelancing for the Auckland Star.
He was working at the same lab and he took me out on a job.
This is about 1986.
Then a year later, I got to go to the Rugby World Cup.
Bruce ran an agency with his mates, Ross Land and those guys.
I had a chance to go along with my crappy little lens.
I think I got about three photos sharp all day.
I kind of got hooked.
I'd go to the picture desk first thing Monday mornings, learning how to process and print.
Once I got some photos published in the paper, I thought that was pretty cool.
HM: Where did it go from there?
AC: I ended up getting a job as a darkroom technician and junior photographer at the Auckland Star.
That closed in 1991. I had $12,000 redundancy, so I bought a lens and went to England for the Rugby World Cup.
Shot David Campese running past me to score in the semifinal in Dublin.
I started looking at specialising in sports photography, and making a business out of it.
I came home and set up Photosport.
The timing was quite good because rugby turned professional a couple of years later, and the Warriors arrived.
HM: Do you miss the days of film?
AC: Hell no. Ha ha. Not at all.
You think back to those darkrooms, where you couldn't breathe and there were chemicals everywhere.
It was good to get that background of processing and printing film. But we got on to digital straight away.
Cameras changed so quickly.
You were just constantly upgrading for a while.
The quality got better and better.
HM: What have been the highlights of your career?
AC: The Olympics, probably.
Athens was amazing.
Hamish Carter and Sarah Ulmer both getting gold medals.
London was spectacular.
The Cricket World Cup this year - those two big games at Eden Park.
The Fifa World Cup in South Africa in 2010 was incredible.
They gave me some incredible access.
It was just a really good vibe.
HM: Favourite sport to cover?
AC: Cricket. It's challenging.
But I think of things like that test we won in Hobart, and the day McCullum got his 302.
Rugby's great, too.
It's amazing to be on the field when the All Blacks do the haka.
You pick up on that energy and excitement.
HM: Hardest sport to photograph?
AC: Golf's never easy.
It's hard to get around the course, and can be hard to keep up with who's leading.
It's enjoyable but hard to shoot. And any indoor stadium that doesn't have good lighting - that's probably my best answer to the question.
There are a lot of dodgy, badly-lit stadiums in New Zealand.
HM: Any event on your bucket list that you are desperate to photograph?
AC: Oh, maybe Wimbledon.
That would be the one.
If I could be there every year, I would.
I got to go there for the Olympics in 2012.
But Wimbledon is always on in the middle of our rugby season.
HM: How many photos have you got in the Photosport archive?
AC: Just under a terabyte of data.
About half a million images.
HM: Outside the glamorous events, do you snap your family all the time?
AC: Yeah, I get a lot of enjoyment out of photographing my son and daughter playing football.
Every Saturday morning, I'm there.
My son plays cricket as well.
HM: For someone like me, who is photographically inept, what are some simple tips for taking a sports photo?
AC: Get yourself a good SLR camera, a Canon or Nikon. Make sure you've got it on continuous high-speed, rather than one shot.
And just be patient.
