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On the busesBy Stacey DoornenbalUsing public transport is not everyone’s idea of fun but for oneCanterbury University graduate riding Christchurch’s red busesproved inspirational.Tim Veling, who recently completed a Master of Fine Arts inphotography, spent two years of his three year master’s projectriding the city’s buses. He spent entire days, often six days a week,hopping onto random buses at the City Exchange accompaniedonly by his Leica camera and a questioning mind.He would take photographs of sights and scenes that interestedhim, chat to people, hop off at a stop that caught his attentionor just sit and soak in the atmosphere. The experience, he says,taught him a lot about himself and about where he comes from.“It’s really solidified in my heart where my home is and whatthat abstract idea of ‘home’ means to me. I know my heart willalways be here, in Christchurch, and this experience has givenme the strength to know that I can live somewhere else and knowwhere I belong.”The project, called Red Bus Diary, took on a life of its ownonce Veling completed it early this year. An exhibition of hisphotographs was held at the Centre for Contemporary Art (CoCA)during the University of Canterbury’s arts festival, Platform, inAugust, and a book containing his photographs, thoughts andtravel stories was published by Hazard Press. The book, also calledRed Bus Diary, is part of the A Place in Time project, a School of FineArts multi-media project documenting the 21 st century.“It’s been pretty strange to tell you the truth. It’s all crept up onme pretty quickly. I wished this would happen to me — that I’dhave an exhibition and get my book published — but I didn’t thinkit would happen so quickly. It’s been a real whirlwind.”Part of the whirlwind was fuelled by media interest in his project.The 26-year-old appeared on TV1’s Breakfast show earlier this year,has featured in local newspapers and been interviewed on RadioNZ, Plains FM and student-run radio station RDU.“It was strange seeing myself on TV and in the newspapers. I’vehad people stopping me in the street asking me about my projectand saying I must have learned a lot. It’s just been amazing,”says Veling.Seeing his work on a gallery’s walls was also a somewhatsurreal experience.“It didn’t seem like my work. I’ve moved on from the time of mylife when I was working on the book and, although I know eachTim Veling looks at one of his photos featured on the back of a city bus.photograph and paragraph intimately, I know I don’t see the worldin quite the same way anymore — and that’s a good thing.”Veling was also excited by an educational component of theexhibition which gave Christchurch school children a chance toride the city’s buses with cameras and experience what Veling had.Their photographs were also exhibited at CoCA.“They seemed to really latch onto the idea.”Inspiration for Red Bus Diary came after Veling’s car broke down ashe was heading to work. He was forced to take a bus and sat nextto a man who gave him food for thought.“I sat next to this older guy wearing a McDonald’s uniform andwe got talking. It turned out this guy had been really sick withprostate cancer and thought he was going to die. He’d been backat work for a week and was feeling better and then I complainedabout not liking buses and he said something that really got methinking. He said, ‘What are you going to learn by being in a car byyourself that you don’t already know?’”From that day Veling started to ride the city’s buses.“I took photos of everything as a kind of visual diary so I hadhundreds of rolls of film. But it was ‘out-of-the-corner-of-my-eye’stuff, and glimpses of interesting things I saw on the buses. I’dalso get off when I saw something interesting and walk around.There were days when I’d just walk from Hornby to New Brightonand the amount of photos I’d take depended on the day.”Veling began Red Bus Diary with the intention of creating a socialdocumentary but it developed into what he now calls “a selfishdiary adventure”. Until deciding to explore the city by publictransport, Veling had spent much of his life in the northwestChristchurch suburb of Burnside and his daily routine of studyand work had kept him within a limited section of the city.When he became quite ill with Crohn’s disease, an inflammatorybowel disorder, while finishing his undergraduate studies, herealised he might never see the rest of his own city let aloneanywhere overseas.“It’s so easy to get caught up in that kind of routine and when Igot sick I realised how entrenched you can become in that kind oflifestyle. It didn’t take much for me at all to jump on a differentbus each day and go somewhere I’d never been before.”After nearly four years of keeping Red Bus Diary to himself andtalking about it only to those close to him, Veling says it’s beenstrange sharing it with other people and expects there will bea “mourning period” now the project has ended. However, he’s“itching” to start another project.“I’ve been getting these ideas floating around in my head ofwhat I want to do and explore and I’d really like to put theminto practice.”He says he would like to produce a body of photographic workwith an authentic New Zealand voice, but with more colour toreflect his new state of mind.“When I was writing Red Bus Diary I wasn’t all that happy but I gotit out of my system through obsessive writing and taking photos.I’m not thinking in black and white anymore — I’ve moved on fromthat and I’m pretty bloody happy now so it’s all good.”As an exclusive offer for University of Canterbury alumni Red Bus Diary is available forpurchase through the Alumni Office for the special price of $29.95.36 Canterbury Magazine