{"id":607923,"date":"2026-09-22T06:52:17","date_gmt":"2026-09-22T06:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607923\/"},"modified":"2026-09-22T06:52:17","modified_gmt":"2026-09-22T06:52:17","slug":"country-life-the-farm-photographer-who-captured-a-changing-new-zealand-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/607923\/","title":{"rendered":"Country Life: The farm photographer who captured a changing New Zealand"},"content":{"rendered":"

The collection has been recognised by Aotearoa New Zealand\u2019s Unesco Memory of the World Trust and achieved inscription on the Memory of the World Register.<\/p>\n

It is now housed at the Walsh Memorial Library in the Museum of Transport and Technology (Motat) in Auckland.<\/p>\n

Vine\u2019s attention to detail is a feature of the collection, Motat pictorial librarian Malcom Duffy told RNZ\u2019s Country Life.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey were very beautiful, and it took a bit of research to understand the context and the place of this photography in the New Zealand context, but they were still remarkable, very, very crisp and clear photography, done in natural light, of course, because he was out in the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

And there was a real sense of intimacy between Vine and his subjects.<\/p>\n

\u201cEspecially when it came to the farmers, the farm workers \u2013 there was a real sense of the pride in their work that came through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vine began his agricultural journalism career riding a motorbike.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe literally just hit the road in his motorcycle sidecar.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe went out there, he introduced himself to farmers, was happy to talk about their problems, possible solutions, and this was a network he built up over the next four or five years.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we do know that he got sick of travelling on the motorcycle sidecar after roughly 12 months.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vine then moved on to a more sophisticated way of getting around.<\/p>\n

\"RonRon Vine sitting on his motorcycle sidecar combination. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s where his story really starts to pick up as both an agricultural journalist and a man very invested in technology because he proceeded to then take a Model T Ford and break it down and made a whole caravan from packing cases \u2013 the Model T Ford chassis \u2013 and that\u2019s how he continued his journeys for the next few years, towed by a little Austin 7, and he built his own darkroom in that caravan as well, which was made by hand, with almost no training or experience, and he created his own photographic enlarger using a headlamp from a car.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"RonRon Vine’s car on road to Maungapiko. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

His No. 8 wire solutions included a developing tank designed to be placed in creeks and streams to wash film and prints when he was out and about.<\/p>\n

Vine\u2019s photos are significant as a record of New Zealand agriculture in transition.<\/p>\n

In the 1930s and 40s, land was being cleared and turned into pasture.<\/p>\n

\"MrMr ED McLennan and farm workers in a paspalum field. 1940. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

\u201cThe landscapes and areas he documented, a lot of them had been deforested and then had just developed naturally into scrubland, a lot of fern, a lot of m\u0101nuka, and so when he arrives in the 1930s, the Government is actually starting to release these lands.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey still don\u2019t have the significant visual elements we always identify with farming \u2013 there\u2019s no full irrigation ditching, the races aren\u2019t really visible yet, the fences, the sheds, the shelter belts, they\u2019re not fully there.<\/p>\n

\"AA group of children standing near the Kaikohe Native School bus charabanc. 1940. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

\u201cOften they\u2019re very wide open vistas, and to me it\u2019s a very interesting aspect because we often see either the wilds of New Zealand or we see farms that are very well established.\u201d<\/p>\n

Experts say the collection is also significant for its images of Sir \u0100pirana Ngata\u2019s M\u0101ori land development scheme and M\u0101ori communities.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s really important to Ron because he was raised amongst the native school communities, and he grew up in M\u0101ori communities which were often farming not the best lands, not totally productive, and so for him to be there as the M\u0101ori land development scheme was gathering strength, I think his connection with M\u0101ori communities around the Ruatoki and Urewera area, that enabled him to get that sort of relationship where he could be very documentarian in his photography.<\/p>\n

\"MrMr P Osborne and students standing outside Horohoro Native School. 1939. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was very warts and all, but it\u2019s also possibly the best record of \u0100pirana Ngata\u2019s M\u0101ori land development scheme in the country.<\/p>\n

Duffy said mutual respect comes through in the photos of M\u0101ori.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso his respect for the hard work that\u2019s gone into the land.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo much of it was done without any sort of mechanisation; it was all done by hand or with horses.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd it\u2019s a real testament to the hard work that was put in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"TwoTwo men and a dog on the porch of a house at Glinks Gully. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

Farmers, labourers, livestock breeders and heads of local agricultural associations were typically subjects for Vine\u2019s camera, and many would become friends and subjects of future reporting for publications like The New Zealand Farmer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a real dichotomy in those images too, because he was also photographing communities that were actually quite wealthy at times … but then we go to those rural communities, and we see people who are often living and working within raup\u014d huts or very primitive structures, so we\u2019ve got that real contrast between urban and rural life of New Zealand in the 30s.\u201d<\/p>\n

\" Miss Lampshire and her horse-drawn herd-testing wagon. Photo \/ Ron Vine, Walsh Memorial Library, Motat<\/p>\n

Vine wanted people to prosper and believed in the value of institutional and generational knowledge, without being judgmental, Duffy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think his approach often was looking back at what had worked and what hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know that that\u2019s very important in the agricultural sector \u2013 if the farmers aren\u2019t aware of the sort of problems and outputs of their land and their stock over the previous decades, it\u2019s hard to find a way forward that\u2019s going to be productive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duffy said people can view the collection at Motat in Auckland and librarians would be happy to guide them through it.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf there\u2019s a particular family or geographic location that people are interested in, we can always assist them with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The collection has been recognised by Aotearoa New Zealand\u2019s Unesco Memory of the World Trust and achieved inscription…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":607924,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[9260,14229,2841,3233,424,117,111,43,139,69,13636,18833,8909,223,1299,80],"class_list":["post-607923","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-captured","tag-changing","tag-country","tag-farm","tag-life","tag-new","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-photographer","tag-round","tag-sally","tag-the","tag-who","tag-zealand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607923","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=607923"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/607923\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/607924"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=607923"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=607923"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=607923"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}