SKY PETCH

Sophie, David, Jeff and Maia

I’ve captured David’s portrait at his home previously, and it was time to see the hives he manages at ARA Christchurch this week. After clambering out of the window, we got to see the active hives in a great sheltered spot between a beautiful tree and the ‘U’ building roof, where David teaches cooking skills. It’s fascinating where hives thrive isn’t it?

I’m really happy to be able to add an urban location to the growing collection of hive imagery that has taken me high into the mountains, into peoples back yards, and now on top of city developments. I have another urban hive shoot lined up this week.

At a totally different environment at Amberley, I then captured Sophie’s portrait from Mount Lyford Honey surrounded by open green paddocks and trees. I’ve now documented the six staff at Mount Lyford Honey, and Sophie’s happy place is with her amazing horses and dog. I actually dropped one of my cameras when with Sophie, and the back popped right open!

On developing I lost 3 images from the shoot with David, but due to my obsession with ‘backing up’ with black and white, not all was lost fortunately. Hive photos of the crew working at Mount Lyford will now have to wait until the new year, with the end of this week signalling the final image taking of the university hand-in, and development/ scan.

Then focus then switched back to urban hives with Jeff, who has been hiring ready to go hives across Christchurch for many years. The hives we got to spend time with were on top of Ballantynes department store in the central city, and the light was on our side and lit the scene well, rather than being behind! I finally got to spend time with a Maori beekeeper too and her name is Maia. We actually met twice as the first time the light in her the yard where the hives lived, was to harsh and the highlights combined with dappled shadows, was simply yuck! The second visit was near sunset and it was pretty flat, but gave us a beautiful lens flare with golden light. Maia is officially the last beekeeper portrait go the ARA project. I’m so tired that I can’t really even think straight.

Shooting film has definitely been a full-time process, and the grind has been real over the past 4 + months. I’m deep into the copy for the book now too, and also printed a selection of images at ARA for the end of year exhibition. I’m pretty delirious to be honest. Emotional too.

I’m happy that we are at the end of this stage of the project, and looking forward to a break into 2022. The hours invested in this project have very quickly started to build up to the 400 required for the project. I’m really happy overall. Tick tock…. I’ve truly LOVED capturing everyones portrait, but its now time to rest and make sense of what’s happening here in my beautiful New Zealand.