"A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa" Exhibition

"A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa," Hocken Gallery, 20 September 2025-7 February 2026

DESCRIPTION: "Trace the first 50 years of photography in Aotearoa New Zealand – from ca.1850 to 1900 – through precious, original photographs. This exhibition is a collaboration between Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, Alexander Turnbull Library and Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena."

SUMMARY: The exhibition shows how the development of photography coincided with the settlement of New Zealand.  It provides insights on both photographic processes—daguerreotypes, ambrotypes, tintypes, and opalotypes, and finally paper prints—and history and culture, including phenomena such as the craze for collecting cartes de visite ("portraits for the people") and the popularity of photo albums.

"A Different Light," a collaboration of Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Alexander Turnbull Library and Hocken Collections Uare Taoka o Hākena, was co-curated by Shaun Higgins (Auckland Museum), Anna Petersen (Hocken Libraries) and Natalie Marshall (Alexander Turnbull Library).  "A Different Light" opened at the Auckland Museum on 11 April 2024, then ran at Adam Art Gallery in Wellington (1 February-15 June) before making its way to Dunedin.  Coinciding with the Auckland opening, Auckland University Press published A Different Light First Photographs of Aotearoa, edited by Catherine Hammond and Shaun Higgins.  An article by Jennifer Cauchi, senior conservator at the Alexander Turnbull Library, gives a sense of the immense amount of preparation required to put together and move this exhibition.

A number of interactive elements developed by designers for the Auckland Museum were included in the different iterations of the exhibition; for example a studio setting where one can sit for a photo has proved popular with visitors.  The Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin iterations of the exhibition also differed in a number of ways.  The exhibition in Wellington was held in a large gallery space, while the Dunedin exhibition has a decidedly more intimate feel.  Anna Petersen noted that at the Hocken she added 35 photographs not in the original exhibition; these provide greater relevance to the Dunedin audience.  The largest image in the exhibition is a projected image of the removal of Bell Hill.  Opposite that, in acknowledgment of mana whenua, is the earliest photograph of the kaik (unfortified village) at Moeraki.  Petersen also selected the "fun portrait" of three young men wearing different styles of hats, a tintype from the 1880s, for the Dunedin exhibition poster rather than the more obvious image of two camera men used in Wellington publicity.  Changes had to be agreed upon by the three collaborating institutions.
The earliest photo in the exhibition, Portrait of Edward Catchpool, Collector of Customs for Wellington, is a "sixth plate daguerreotype" from April 1852. Sixth-plate—2 3/4" x 3 1/4" (7 cm x 8 cm)—was a popular size because it was easy to carry.
"Panorama from Bell Tower," silver albumen prints by William Meluish, 1863.  According to his biography in Te Ara: The Encyclopedia of New Zealand, Meluish emigrated to New Zealand around 1858.  After briefly running a gallery in Nelson, he moved to Dunedin and started his photography business here in 1860.  He was active in the early 1860s, at the height of the Otago gold rush, with a studio on Princes Street and later at Princes and Dowling Streets. Te Ara summarizes: "Meluish took portraits of leading Dunedin citizens and photographs of city residences, but his outstanding contribution to the documentation of Dunedin's history was his photographing of cityscapes from the same viewpoints at regular, annual intervals.  Indeed a search for "Meluish" in the Hocken Library ReCollect digital archival produces 136 results almost all of which are Dunedin cityscapes.  His work also includes interesting images from 1861 or 1862 of the gold rush showing tents dotting the hills at Gabriel's Gully (>).   See also: https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/1m41/meluish-william (accessed 19 October 2025).  (more)
"Excavation of Bell Hill with First Church of Otago in the background, circa 1875" albumen silver print cabinet card by John McGregor.  I might have chosen this image for the exhibition poster.  As a kid I liked to take photos with my Kodak Instamatic of construction sites in the Palisades.
Portrait of "King Tāwhiao [Ng āti Mahuta], Tukāroto Matutaera Potatau Te Wherowhero," an albumen silver print / carte de visite by Elizabeth Pulman in 1882.  The exhibition states that King Tāwhiao, the second Māori king, was a celebrity, but that in general, "Pākeha photographers rarely bothered to record the names of Māori sitters on their prints, And they didn't pay them, either."  Pulman's biography in Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand notes that she initially was in business with her husband, then carried on after he died, running her studio for almost 30 years,  The biography summarizes that Pulman "was among New Zealand's early photographers, and was possibly the first woman professional."  See: Phillip D. Jackson. 'Pulman, Elizabeth', Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, first published in 1993. Te Ara - the Encyclopedia of New Zealand, https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/2p32/pulman-elizabeth (accessed 19 October 2025).
Another Elizabeth Pulman image—10 x 12 gelatin silver glass negative of a wahine Māori, inscribed Pirhira Kereama from the 1880s. 
"Ellen Brook and her two daughters, Ester and Jane, circa 1895" an opalotype, which is described as "a soft, tone-rich print made on translucent milk glass."  This image really stands out; the soft, dreamy, delicate look is distinctive.  Wikipedia notes that opalotypes are "one of a number of early photographic techniques now generally consigned to historical status." 
"View of Franz Joseph Glacier with real ferns decorating the album page, circa 1880s."  This is really elegant and resonated with me; it reminds me of grandma's albums, now lost in the fire.  Today we would flip through all the images on our cell phones.

 

See also:

Catherine Hammond and Shaun Higgins, eds.  A DIFFERENT LIGHT: First Photographs of Aotearoa.  Auckland University Press, April 2024.

"A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa - from the curators."  Auckland Museum, 15 April 2024. 

Jennifer Cauchi.  "A different view of ‘A Different Light’ — behind the scenes."  Alexander Turnbull Library, 11 March 2025.

Athol McCredie.  "Collecting photographs: The development of Te Papa's historical photography collection."  Tuhinga, 20: 41-66 (2009).

Two decades ago Te Papa Museum of New Zealand organized an exhibition with a similar theme "Striking Poses" (12 March 2003 - 01 November 2003).

Hardwicke Knight.  PHOTOGRAPHY IN NEW ZEALAND: a social and technical history.  Dunedin, NZ: J. McIndoe, 1971.  plus other books

Jill Haley.  "The Colonial Family Album: Photography and Identity in Otago, 1848-1890."  PhD thesis, University of Otago, 2017.

Early New Zealand Photographers and their successors - an excellent blog.

Toitū: Otago Settlers Museum.


Hocken Library moved into the former Co-operative Dairy Co. of Otago building in 1998 (>).  The library, part of the University of Otago, houses a world class collection of documents, ephemera, artwork, and photographs on Aotearoa New Zealand, the Pacific, and Antarctica.
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