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Michael King and Robin Morrison
A book that captures the past and the present.
For almost as long as I can remember, I have felt that there was a story to be told about the Chathams. When I was at primary school, we were shown coloured slides of the islands and their inhabitants and wildlife by Keith Maynard, who worked at the radio station at Waitangi. This led me to Frank Simpson's and E.C. Richards' books, published only a short time before.
The combined impression I gained was of a mysterious place where volcanic cones rose out of sea mist; where ancient people of unknown origin had left imprints on trees and rocks: where seals and seabirds inhabited a harsh coast; where sparse trees were bent by relentless winds against bleak landscapes; where abandoned whalers trypots, stone fireplaces and whale bones preservered cameos that might have come straight from a Herman Melville novel; and where people----descendants of Moriori, Maori, sealers, whalers and missionaries---seemed a weather-beaten and as durable as the rocks and the trees.
Michael King
In photographing the people, and the landscapes in which they live, I have tried to give some sense of how the Chathams feel to an outsider. I was struck by how the landscape differs in many ways from any I've seen in New Zealand. There are differences in the people too, shaped as they are by their geographical isolation and their short but eventful history. It is a land I enjoyed travelling and photographing in and I intend to return some day and explore further.
Robin Morrison
Available from Hotel Chatham, P.O. Box 3, Chatham Islands 8942 - $45.00 includes postage.
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