Laurence Aberhart was brought to Gore this spring by southern-born arts patron Tim Gerrard and the Eastern Southland Gallery to capture some of the district’s well-known sites.
It was not his first time in the area — around the 100th anniversary of World War1, the photographer toured Southland, taking photographs of its many war memorials.
He said he became enamoured with Southland’s natural beauty, light, bigger sky — and because the things he liked were "still there".
While in the South he visited Waitaki Boys’ High School, in Oamaru, with old boy Mr Gerrard, and said it was one of New Zealand’s "unknown treasures".
"I think the older you get, the more you live in your past, and you’re aware of [it] and the things that form you as the person you are," he said.
A photograph of the school hall alongside a selection of Aberhart’s Southland-related artworks are now on show at the Eastern Southland Gallery.
Aberhart takes large format photos with a view camera on a tripod with bellows and long exposures, leaving his camera for up to an hour to get the elaborate shots.
With variables such as light, movement and film, there were many things that could go wrong with photography, Aberhart said.
And though his shots might look painstaking, he still enjoyed the surprise and chance of an accident.
"I’m a perfectionist that works not in hope of the accident but prepared for the accident.
"I like failure ... The more you miss, when you get the right one, there’s a greater sense of achievement."
He enjoyed treading that line while capturing Sergeant Dan at the Creamoata mill, in Gore, as the sun was going down and he was trying to get the light just right, he said.
The club reminded him of his extensive series of photographs of Masonic lodges across the country, he said.
His interest in the Freemasons began as a personal one.
Growing up, his mother had a strong dislike for the world’s oldest fraternal society.
Aberhart’s uncle, whom he is named after, was a soldier who died of measles in 1941.
At the funeral, when it came time for his uncle to be buried, the family was excluded as it became a "Masonic rite", which was something his mother never forgave.
As Aberhart became more familiar with small towns, he realised there was a Masonic building in every one, but never on the main drag.
"I had to go looking for them," he said.
This began a useful device for Aberhart where, in finding the lodges, he would get to know the place better as well.
"I became interested in recording them," he said.
"But then it became recording them and a number of other buildings, because if someone like myself didn’t record them, in the future, would they be remembered?"
Aberhart’s work features in the Eastern Southland Gallery’s Bosshard Browne Collection until November 23.
