NZPhotographer Issue 23, September 2019

Interview with
Fairlie Atkinson
HI FAIRLIE, ALTHOUGH READERS WILL KNOW
YOU FROM OUR BLOG INTERVIEW, WHY DON’T
YOU GIVE US A RECAP?!
I live in Kapiti and teach Photography and Design at
Kapiti College. My partner Peter and I have four children
(2 each) and we also have two exchange students
living with us long term while they study at Kapiti College.
Our life is pretty busy as we are doing up our home. That
being said it is perfect for our large eclectic family.
Since I teach photography, I am immersed in it all day
with my students, time for my own photography during
the school term is rare so I tend to do my own creative
work on the weekends if it is a project I can involve my
kids in, and during school holidays.
My own photography passion is creating bird portraiture
as a way of fundraising for local wildlife reserves and
I donate my images of native New Zealand birds to
wildlife and conservation organisations to use in their
advertising and marketing to avoid them having to use
their budgets to pay for this service.
Aside from photography I love horse riding and teach
horse riding after school one day a week. I enjoy
reading crime novels, visiting nature reserves, bush
walks, and travelling to new places. I love foreign food,
learning languages and last but not least spending time
with my eclectic family.
TELL US MORE ABOUT HELPING CHARITIES
WITH YOUR PHOTOGRAPHY, WHAT HAVE
YOU DONE MOST RECENTLY?
Most recently I was in Turangi and captured
images of whio in the wild that I have donated to
an organisation called Whio Forever. They partner
with DoC to protect the whio, and photos of whio
in their natural habitat are a wonderful indicator
of their success. They can use my photos (if they
wish) to showcase this success on social media
or anywhere that might raise their profile. I also
donate my images to Staglands and Nga Manu
whenever I visit, and I have a series of images taken
at Nga Manu, when I sell prints of these I donate a
percentage to the Reserve. They do incredible work
rehabilitating our native birds and I believe it is only
fair to give back to the community that supports my
photography.
HOW AND WHEN DID YOU DECIDE TO
BECOME A PHOTOGRAPHY TEACHER?
I have spent most of my career teaching at universities
in Asia and the Middle East. My children were born
in the Middle East but I wanted to raise them in New
Zealand. Therefore, I returned to high school teaching
in New Zealand in 2015 where I taught English and
Technology.
I had been given a DSLR camera that same year
and started playing with it so by the time I moved to
Kapiti in 2017 I had decided photography was what
I wanted to teach. I enrolled in a level 5 diploma of
photography with the Southern Institute of Technology
and realised very quickly that I wanted to teach
a creative subject that students took as an option
rather than a core subject that students had to take.
I was lucky that Tony Kane, the principal had faith
that I could do this and I am in a supportive working
environment. The Visual Arts teaching community
is incredibly caring and share many resources and
support new teachers to the subject very well.
HOW DO YOU APPROACH THE TEACHING OF
PHOTOGRAPHY?
My approach is two-fold. First, I believe students need
to experiment. The first thing I do for new students is
to run a camera boot camp which is two weeks long.
Each day we focus on something different like shutter
speed or aperture etc. I give them challenges related
to this, like take a photo that shows someone jumping
in the air, with no blur.
12 NZPhotographer