Ōtautahi Christchurch
Aotearoa New Zealand
©2025 Tim J. Veling
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
Archival pigment print from digitised tri-colour negative
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives.
Archival pigment prints from digitised tri-colour negatives
Silver gelatine contact prints from 8x10” negatives
This gallery presents a small selection of work I made during the three months I spent undertaking the Creative Communicator role as part of the Pūharakekenui Styx Living Laboratory Trust.
Exhibited 2024 at PG Gallery 192, Ōtautahi Christchurch
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Between July – September 2022, I traveled the length of Pūharakekenui Styx River searching for places of quiet contemplation and elusive beauty. Inspired by the vision of establishing a ‘source to sea’ walkway for people to experience and learn about river’s rich ecosystems, cultural significance and narratives, I made topographical photo-maps in an attempt to capture the fleeting plays of light and changeable atmosphere that makes this body of water so special.
Pūharakekenui originates in Harewood as a dry swale that intermittently fills with storm water. Via Ōtautahi Christchurch’s northern suburbs, it meanders east through Styx Mill Reserve. The river is fed at Redwood Springs then runs under the SH74 Northern Corridor, through commercial blocks, residential and lifestyle developments, as well as several conservation reserves. After 25km it feeds into Brooklands Lagoon, mixing with the Wamakariri.
Using a Linhof view camera and black and white film – technology firmly rooted in the early 19th Century – for each isolated colour frame you see here, I made three exposures filtered through red, green and blue gels respectively. Due to the extremely fussy nature of the antiquated tools and materials, each of these exposures was captured up to five minutes apart. This resulted in the creation of a series of discrete records (negatives) that testify to the luminosity of light within each colour band that fell on each scene during a series of disjointed moments. In the scanning / printing stage, these discrete records were then filtered back through the same gels and combined to create full spectrum (additive RGB) colour images.
Because of the time that passed between each initial exposure, as well as the intrinsic crudeness of the methods, the resulting composite colour prints exhibit ghostly colour fringing and mismatched details, particularly in areas of subject movement. While colour accuracy is, at best, also an approximation, there is something very ‘true’ in their rendering of light. I like to think these qualities serve to reveal a sense of place and time subconsciously felt but not often comprehended when standing in situ along the river. Light has a transcendent, redeeming potential – even in places of obvious environmental neglect, it can remind us that the pathway to environmental restoration – locally and globally – is not too late to follow, but we need to act now.