Photography comp highlights plight of the kauri

Social media provides a great medium for shutterbugs constantly snapping their favourite nature scenes about the area in an array of different lights, times and moods.

Now the Kauri Museum is offering a wonderful opportunity to get serious about photography and highlight the famed Kauri.

Matakohe’s Kauri Museum is well-known throughout New Zealand as one of the country’s best regional museums and tourist attractions.

One of the jewels of the Kauri Museum’s collection is a gift of over 1200 images from photographer Tudor Washington Collins, who was born at Towai in 1898.

Many of these images can be seen hanging throughout the museum and in a new special exhibition, titled Man of Many Faces which celebrates the diversity of his work.

Tudor is perhaps best known for his work as the ‘kauri cameraman’ capturing the glory and grandeur of standing kauri while also documenting the loss of the forests through the timber and gum industries.

With only 4 percent of our ancient forests remaining – and facing the threat of kauri die-back disease – the Kauri Museum has initiated an online photography competition as part of its ongoing support of the programme to ‘Keep Kauri Standing’ and stop the spread of this deadly disease.

CEO Lisa Tolich explains: “We have chosen the theme of All Things Kauri to highlight the importance and diversity of kauri through the modern camera lens.”

The competition has three categories: Primary School student, Secondary School student and Open.

As long as the entry is based on a photographic image, the work can take any form. Judges will choose from entries uploaded to the website and four entries from each category will be shortlisted to go forward to the finals.

Finalists will have their work hung at The Kauri Museum, with winners announced at a special awards presentation in August.

The Tudor Collins People’s Choice Award will be running throughout, with voting online.

Judges for the event are Kelly Wilson, author and winner of the 2014 National Geographic People’s Choice Photographer of the Year, and Stephen Davies, artist and art curator.

Entries are restricted to residents in the Northland region only i.e. the area covered by the Kaipara, Whangarei and Far North District Councils. n All details, including entry forms and rules, can be found on The Kauri Museum’s website at awards.kau.nz.

THREATENED: The Northland-only online competition is based on a theme of All Things Kauri.