Family Home

The newly painted family home sparkles in the Dunedin summer. The special thing about this house is that it was designed and pre-fabricated in America in the mid 1800’s and then shipped to New Zealand where it was assembled on this property around 1863. The house has been added to and repaired at various times, but this front section is pretty much original. It would have been great to have a similar photo taken when the house was built to compare with this photo, but when the house was fabricated cameras were still quite rare, and certainly did not take colour shots.

My First Home

Over my lifetime I have lived in many houses at several locations in New Zealand. In fact the longest period of time I have lived in any house is the house I currently live in - around 14 years. Overall I estimate I have lived in about 17 different houses at six locations.

This photo is of the house I first lived in. Guppy Road Greenmeadows clearly provided a lot of scope for landscaping, and my father is at the front of the house giving it a good go. I was to young to remember anything about living in this house, but it was a starting point.

Each house I have lived in has had it's own character and history. They have become markers for different stages of my life. I wonder if that would have happened if I had lived in one or two houses over the course of my lifetime?

If only they knew

This is a photo of my father heading off on his honeymoon. Nothing fancy, a car, a tent and two people beginning to share the future together. Who would have thought back then that one day this photo would be included in a system called the world wide web, with almost anyone in the world being able to look at it. Also, would they have realised that the photo could be included in an integrated family history that will live on in the digital future? Increasingly we have the opportunity to become digital archivists and to include everything we can about people from the past world as well as the current world. In a sense my parents are still part of the future, a future they could never have imagined they would be involved in. Journeys can be strange things!

Manet painting

Le Dejeuner sur l'herbe by Edouard Manet was a painting that had a significant impact on my interest in art, particularly modern art. I studied this painting when I was at the School of Education in Hamilton - and was really excited when, many years later, I stood in front of the actual picture in a Gallery in Paris. The painting was real! I was able to appreciate how far I had come from those early days of College art classes in terms of my understanding of art and how this had impacted on my life. A loop had been closed.

Where Romans walked

These stones form part of a path from the Forum to the Colosseum  in Rome. As I walked down the path I knew I was stepping on stones that Caesar may have walked on. History does not only exist in the big things, the small components that make up the big picture are also important. That's why many of the photographs I have taken while travelling overseas have been of paths and walls and the more obscure parts of buildings. Then I can say "where the Romans have been I have also been".

The importance of early experiences

As a young person my partner and I moved to the Waikato area so I could attend the local university. Accommodation proved to be difficult to find so we looked around at cottages for rent on local dairy farms.  Eventually we were offered a cottage on the understanding that we would run the farm for a month while the farmer went away on his annual holiday. This was not just rent in lieu of working on the farm, it was accommodation for actually running the farm! I said yes, we could do that although I had never really been on, or worked on a dairy farm in my life.  We had a weeks induction and then we were in charge! It was one of the greatest challenges in my life but we did it; the farm survived and I learnt an important lesson. Don’t be afraid of taking on really big challenges, even though they may seem daunting at the outset they are usually achievable. More importantly, by taking on big challenges you learn how to utilise the resources you will need to achieve the outcome you want. I have subsequently faced bigger challenges than running a farm for a month, but I am sure the lessons I learned from this experience made these new challenges more possible to achieve.