Photojournalism in Lyttelton, NZ November 27, 2003
Arriving
in Christchurch (CHCH) in mid-November means most of the University of
Canterbury's spring adult education classes have already started -- indeed
many have already ended -- but this year there was still a short course in
photography that hadn't yet begun. It was a five-hour class in
photojournalism, a three-hour morning field trip followed the next week by a
two-hour discussion / show-and-tell.
I hadn't thought about it before, but travelogues are a form of photojournalism. This "surprising" realization has hit me rather belatedly (actually it wasn't until after the class' field trip that I was able to add to four).
The class was small, seven students armed with a wide variety of cameras (from the instructor's digital SLR with all sorts of bells and whistles and at least 3 different zoom lenses, to one woman's 50 mm point and shoot). My FujiFilm FinePix digital camera with 6X zoom was just about right for the task, enough zoom range to get shot versatility (close-ups and wide views) without any weighty problems to lament while climbing the hills.
The field trip was to Lyttelton, an almost-suburb of CHCH, about 20 minutes from downtown.
Lyttelton is an old (by
Kiwi standards) port town, over 150 years old. It was relatively isolated
from Christchurch
for
many years, since a trip over the volcanic Port Hills was required to get there.
These hills quickly rise up approximately 2000 feet from the waterfront.
(If you plan to visit, take the
scenic
drive to the top, or better yet, hike up there -- definitely recommended.)
About 40 years ago a car (and, of course, truck) tunnel was built through the
mountain. Commerce is a lot more facile, and the town is a lot closer and
easier to get to nowadays.
Lyttelton is the South Island's biggest multi-purpose port: a place with piles of logs waiting for export, stacked containers full of goods, commercial ships, tugboats, and cruise ships. Both Scott and Shackleton began their epic voyages to Antarctica and the South Pole from here.
Aside
from the port area, Lyttelton is a also a small town -- just a few streets
really. It's a mixture of old and new, quaint and run-down, colorful and ugly.
There's room for more development here, turning the town into a tourist
attraction, but this hasn't really come together yet. Instead Lyttelton is
a little bit of many things, but mostly just a New Zealand sort of place.
Best of all, Lyttelton is a colorful town: colorful things to look at, colorful buildings, and colorful residents. I'm hoping these pictures speak for themselves!
