Auckland - Rineke Dijkstra shoots in Helensville

Helensville is a country town 50 minutes drive North of Auckland, it sits on the tidal Kaipara River and is known for its thermal hot pools and John Parry's eccentric collection of mostly Kiwi memorabilia housed in the old Helensville cinema. I usually take visitors to Helensville as the place has a charm of it's own with an ambience you won't find in Amsterdam or New York. So it was that I took Rineke Dijkstra and Paul Graham on a tour of the town. Inevitably we came across a bunch of the local teens that Rineke wanted to photograph. Of course that day we didn't had a single heavy duty camera between us and Rineke had left her 4x5 field camera in Amsterdam. Undaunted, after a few calls to friendly sympathetic colleagues I was able to borrow the gear, and a plan to head back to Helensville was hatched.

Special thanks here to John and Karen at UNITEC who lent us their Speed Graphic field camera. Chris and Steve at APIX PHOTOGRAPHIC SUPPLIES who lent an Elinchrom Quadra lighting kit, which Rineke raved positively about. Becky from Whitecliffe School of Art who lent a bunch of dark slides and was happy to load them.....

Here are some pictures from the shoot: Paul observes, Rineke shoots, the kids wait, and Zoe and Rineke look at some results....

Rineke has taken the 4x5 film back to Amsterdam for processing, I'm waiting to hear the outcome.