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< Back Lokop Mabel wins Portrait Award 10 Sept 2023 Lokop Mabel of The Dani tribe has won another award, this time the Portrait category in the international Shoot The Frame competition. The image, taken in the Papua Region of Indonesia, will be exhibited at the Indian Photo Festival Exhibition later this year. Lokop Mabel is one of the elders of Anemoigi village where I stayed as part of my ongoing project to document indigenous peoples. < Previous Next >

< Back Jaguars in the Jungle 20 Jan 2020 In this coming weekend's Sunday Star-Times you can read all about how I helplessly watched on as my guide was slowly poisoned... ... how children celebrate Christmas in an Amazonian fishing village, how the 'mark of the Matses' is slowly fading with generations, and how I ended up on a Peruvian Air Force sea plane trying to reach the middle of the jungle. < Previous Next >

< Back Off-grid Ocean Journey 5 Feb 2015 “When the alarm goes you grab this,” Officer Cadet Dusan said as he pointed to my lifejacket. “And this.” An orange survival suit. “We muster on C Deck, starboard side.” I didn’t know if it was a good or bad thing that my welcome was bringing up Titanic-like thoughts. I had just boarded the ANL Bindaree, a Liberian-flagged freighter that was slowly pulling out into the Hauraki Gulf laden with 30,000 tones of freight, 24 crew and 1 other passenger. I was following a little-known tradition of passengers on cargo ships, harking back to the days when cabins were set aside for owners and VIPs. Today they’re taken by people looking for a slow alternative to air travel, who are independent, have time to spare, and who – like me – just want to do something a little different. I’d chosen a rather circuitous route as was pointed out by Adrian, the bemused Chief Engineer. “OK, so you’re leaving here to come back here to go nowhere?” “Uh huh,” I replied. From Auckland around Cape Reinga across the Tasman to Melbourne, up the Australian Coast to Sydney and then into the South Pacific to disembark at Tauranga. The journey would take two weeks. “You are very strange,” he chuckled. Adrian was one of the Bindaree’s band of officers from Croatia, Romania, and Montenegro; the crew were all Filipino. As is maritime tradition there was strict segregation between the officers and the crew including socialising, eating and sleeping. This irked my fellow passenger, Naomi, a Canadian environmental educator, who was telling me so when we were interrupted. “Attention all crew. Attention all crew,” boomed the PA system. “Clocks go back one hour tonight. One hour.” That marked us entering international waters and that meant the Slop Chest was open. The Slop Chest (official name: Bonded Store) was a duty free treasure trove of alcohol, treats and cigarettes. You pick what you want from the checklist, hand a slip to the officer, it gets delivered to your door, and you pay in $US before disembarking. I made the landlubber’s mistake of thinking I was paying US$18 for a dozen Becks beer. 24 bottles turned up. No matter, there was more than enough room in my quarters. Officially the “Owner’s cabin”, I had a dayroom (two couches, table, writing desk and chair, fridge, LG mini-system, DVD player and TV) as well as a bedroom plus shower and toilet. My porthole (ticket note: “View may be restricted by containers”) looked all the way to the bow. As the days went by the low rumble of the engines was occasionally punctuated by the creaking of container lashes. I spent as much time as possible on the Bridge. Being allowed in the Wheelhouse is one of the perks of being a passenger on a merchant ship, but it definitely wasn’t what I expected. Sure, I’d done my research – if watching Captain Phillips counts – but I hadn’t reckoned on was how automated it all was. There is no grand wheel any more; this one was the size of a PlayStation racing control. “Surprised huh?” Third Officer Paul called out with a grin on his face. “Everything is automatic now, see”. He pointed to the navigation console. “Of course, we still do things manually. Every two hours we plot our exact position on the charts behind you. Don’t want anything to go wrong,” he said understatedly, still smiling. As Officer on Watch he wasn’t actually steering the ship; he was checking it was on track. Just to humour me though he opened a small hatch on the bulkhead – out popped a Morse code machine. The following day I joined Chief Officer Aleksandar on the outer Bridge – him with cigarette and coffee in hand, me with sunglasses, both of us looking out to the horizon. “People don’t understand,” he said passionately. “We are the life blood of the world economy!” He jokingly jabbed his finger to his forearm. “No planes, no trains, ever carry as much as economically as us. This is why shipping will never die.” I nodded in agreement. We were heading west at a majestic 14 knots. He opened a small hatch on the bulkhead – out popped a Morse code machine. Seven decks below the powerhouse of the ship thundered on. In the engine room nine turbines pumped out 720RPM of raw power. “140°” said the engineer, “That’s how hot these pipes are. Don’t touch them.” I didn’t need to be told twice. As awesome as all that power was it was a relief to be topside again. My favourite place was at the bow with 250m of container ship behind me, the hypnotic sound of the swell and the gentle rocking of a massive ship. The mornings were fresh and tingly; the afternoon’s hot and tan-worthy. It wasn’t until Day 6 that we saw land again – Australia. The mood on the Bridge noticeably changed and focus replaced humour. It was as if the ship had been given a talking to at half time and came out with guns blazing. In Melbourne I saw first-hand the life-blood of the world economy. Every container was positioned on the deck according to its declared weight, need for power, displacement of cargo and final destination. Massive cranes, hoists and lights worked 24 hours to keep the infrastructure pumping. After ‘shore leave’ I was back up the gangway in time for dinner. Meals were at set times (7-8am, Noon-1pm, 5-6pm) and eating in the Officers’ Mess was a chance to get to know the men onboard. On freighters the meals are dependent on how good a cook you have and ours was good. Chef Leonardo and Messman Rodel invited me into the galley to proudly show off their honey-glazed chicken, Thai-inspired beef and ice-cream sundaes. Evenings were spent chilling. There was time to read, watch DVDs, work out in the gym or just stare out to sea. More than once I caught up with the ship’s Master, Danko Grgurevic, a typically friendly Croatian who was usually dressed in shorts, a company t-shirt and tennis shoes. We arrived in Botany Bay under a full moon. By then I’d learnt that you’re not supposed to take your passport off the vessel when entering another country (oops) and you have to sit at your allocated place at the dining table even when you’re the only person there (oops again). But despite all those idiosyncrasies there was one great benefit: being “off the grid”. No cellphone, no Facebook, no hashtags, no selfies. After another five days we arrived in Tauranga. I left the crew with a few magazines and beers, and descended the gangway one last time. It had been a privileged insight into a rarefied ecosystem, one with rules and norms that could be daunting to the uninitiated. Luckily, I had the best hosts I could have asked for. And I was rather pleased that I never had to put on that orange survival suit. < Previous Next >

< Back First Place win in Florida 28 Sept 2019 Hadzabe Girl has taken away 1st Place in the People & Portraits category at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts. The image, taken under a rock ledge in Northern Tanzania, shows a young girl, her face covered in dirt except for the clean areas around her mouth. She is one of only 1,500 Hadzabe left in the world, who to this day still speak in clicks. < Previous Next >

< Back Urban 2018 Photo Awards 26 Jun 2018 Guy Needham's Shades of Otara has been chosen as a Selected Series in the dotArt Urban 2018 Photo Awards out of 4,460 photos and 272 portfolios from around the world. The series, taken in South Auckland's Otara markets over a period of years, will now be considered for an exhibition to be held in the Italian city of Trieste later this year. < Previous Next >

< Back Domi Logo goes to Athens 9 May 2023 An image of Domi Logo, one of the elders of the Dani tribe, has been selected for an international Portraits exhibition in Athens, Greece. The portrait which was taken outside the village's pilamo or men's hut will be on show at the Blank Wall Gallery from June 9-21. Although thousands of years old, the Dani tribe was unknown to the rest of the world until 1938. Today they still live a simple life and their traditions have endured, including their formidable appearance for celebratory occasions. < Previous Next >

< Back Presentation on the Huli 20 May 2014 On Tuesday 3rd June at 6pm Guy Needham, will be talking at the opening of his latest exhibition, The Huli of Papua New Guinea. Part of the Auckland Festival of Photography, Guy will be sharing his experiences with the Huli tribe - the last traditional tribe in the Southern Highlands of Papua New Guinea. < Previous Next >

< Back Royal Photographic Society meets Otara 13 Sept 2017 The Royal Photographic Society, one of the world's premium photography institutions, is featuring a gallery of Shades of Otara on their website. The exhibition was included in the Society's Documentary magazine, The Decisive Moment. < Previous Next >

< Back Carnaval in Suitcase Magazine 8 Dec 2021 The latest issue of travel + culture magazine SUITCASE features a photo essay of images Guy Needham took at the Carnaval de Blancos y Negros. Each January, the 5-day festival of colour, noise and foam is held in the southern Colombian city of Pasto, with showers of confetti raining down on performers atop the four-storey-high floats. You can pick up your copy of SUITCASE from next week. < Previous Next >

< Back Hadzabe Kudu in F-Stop magazin 2 Jun 2020 Online photography magazine F-Stop has included two of the Hadzabe series in its June issue - Hadzabe Boy and Hadzabe Kudu. The magazine features contemporary photography from established and emerging photographers from around the world with each issue's theme uniting photographs to create a dynamic dialogue among the artists. < Previous Next >

< Back The AFAR Guide to Auckland 12 Dec 2017 Want to know more about visiting New Zealand's 'City of Sails'? Check out this guide on AFAR.com that I locally edited, to find out the best places to stay, where to eat & drink, what to do, and of course, where to shop. The AFAR Guide to Auckland is here. < Previous Next >

< Back On cultural awareness 14 Apr 2016 Last night Guy Needham spoke at the North Shore Photographic Society about his travel photography experiences and his recent Shades of Otara exhibition. As well as talking about photographic styles and cultural awareness, Guy took questions on everything from lighting to permission to working as a freelancer. < Previous Next >