NEW ZEALAND: Portrait of a Nation
Graham Stewart
Grantham House, $59.99, hbk
Highly-talented photographer Graham Stewart has been plying his craft in New Zealand most successfully for many years.
I recall tramping with him, bread supplies on our backs, over the Wilmot Pass to Deep Cove in Doubtful Sound in 1956, when his brief was to supply pictures for the Weekly News.
In this impressive 340-page volume, Stewart has assembled a truly magnificent range of photographs, both monochrome and colour.
They illustrate not just scenery but buildings, city and country scenes old and comparatively new; people of all ages; facets of life garnered from the length and breadth of this country.
The fat captions are well-written and informative.
Much of the pulling power of the book lies in the inclusion of a multitude of black-and-white historic photographs which, as the introduction points out, "have been matched with photographs taken in the same position today, to make it easy for for the reader to identify the locations".
Stewart himself has travelled throughout the country to provide many of the contemporary illustrations, and the work of a host of other photographers at work throughout many decades has been selected.
This, indeed, is not merely a book of pretty sunset and sunrise photographs.
It depicts the the lifestyles of New Zealanders at work and leisure from early days; the good times and the tragedies,while also giving a nod to many of the nation's outstanding men and women.
It is a sizeable book to leaf through often and to savour.
Good value for money, as a gift for a friend or relative overseas - and here as well - it is ideal.
- Clarke Isaacs is a former chief of staff of the Otago Daily Times.
