World renowned photographer Rachael Hale McKenna has recently moved to Tauranga and just published her latest book, Little Loves: New Zealand Children and Their Favourite Animals. Rachael is one of the world's best-known animal photographers, though it's not widely known she's actually a Kiwi as she's been living overseas for many years. Her previous titles include The French Dog and The French Cat.
Little Loves is her first book focused on New Zealand.
The book celebrates that special connection between Kiwi children and their animals.
Rachael travelled throughout New Zealand - from small towns to remote farms, the beach and the big cities - and met a medley of much-loved animals including cats, dogs, horses, chickens, eels, sheep and even a waterlogged guinea pig.
What brings you back to New Zealand? My husband and I made the move to France in May 2009. We spent four years in France and then six months in New York before returning to France for a further six months. We then made the decision to return to New Zealand and arrived back on home soil in April, last year.A few months later we were on the road again for six months travelling New Zealand capturing the images for Little Loves. It was after this we moved to the Bay of Plenty, in March.
Why Tauranga? I was born and grew up in Auckland but I have always been fond of Tauranga. (I'm fond of many places in New Zealand.) When we returned to New Zealand from Europe, I wasn't keen to settle back into life in Auckland. For one, property prices are a little beyond our reach there now and also we were keen for a gentler lifestyle, not as much traffic, beautiful scenery and it is close enough to Auckland for me to travel there and back in a day if I need to for work. We are currently living in Whakamarama on a small lifestyle block; lots of fruit trees and green paddocks, it's bliss. We have a 5-year-old daughter who is in her first year at Te Puna Primary School.
Your first job was photographic assistant to Anne Geddes in Europe.How did she influence you? Anne is an incredible photographer. She has paved the way for photographers to make a living through licensing their images for greeting cards, calendars, stationery and much, much more! The three years I worked for Anne was during her earlier years and she hadn't yet produced her book Down in the Garden, which was the book that really launched her to fame. I learnt a lot from Anne in regards to running a successful portrait business, how to deal with clients and high work pressures and ethics.
Why did you decide to sell the Rachael Hale brand in 2007, given it was so successful with your images appearing on greeting cards and stationery? 1995 had been the year everything started with a boom for me. I won a competition with an image I created of a pig, a publishing company saw the image and commissioned me to create a range of animal images for greetings cards and calendars ... it all took off so quickly and I made a few decisions early on that I unfortunately came to regret. Twelve years on, things weren't going exactly as I liked. I felt bogged down creatively with the pressures of creating images that the commercial licensing clients requested and I was miserably unhappy having to create images that I wasn't personally proud of.
I needed to be in control of my own creativity again and hence I made the decision to part company with the 'Rachael Hale' brand and move on, to be free to follow my dreams of working with animals in their natural environments, and to work on new, fresh projects that didn't just involve animals. It was a very difficult decision to make at the time, to walk away from a company I had poured my heart and soul into for 12 years, but looking back I still believe I made the best decision of my life. I have been so much happier and I love the photography projects I have been able to pour my heart into since starting fresh under Rachael Hale McKenna.
How did you choose the families and pets for your new book, Little Loves? Through TV publicity and Facebook promotion I received numerous emails from parents and grandparents keen for their children and grandchildren and their pets to be involved in the project.
I actually received far too many enthusiastic applications from certain areas and had to cull them down by choosing a variety of children in different life situations, plus a variety of pet animals.
I wanted to cover as much of New Zealand as possible, so for the areas where I didn't have any children and pets lined up I would phone the local tourist information office in the town prior to arriving in the area and ask a local to spread the word to any families that might be interested. This worked a treat and we always got plenty of responses. The final images and stories that made the book were chosen by the publisher. I always create a lot more images than what is needed for a book so unfortunately not everyone makes it.
What was your favourite shoot and why? That is an incredibly hard question, there are so many that are my favourites as all of the kids and their pets were adorable and so much fun to capture. Some of my favourite images are Meg and Toodles from Havelock North, such a Pippi Longstocking lookalike!
The shoot with Jacob, Sarah and James from Arapawa Island in the Marlborough Sounds was such a magical location and an adorable family, plus it was where we met our gorgeous little Jack Russell, Flash, when he was 6 months old, who is now part of our family; and the shoot with Jack and Billie in the Lindis Pass was so much fun! Milly and her rats from Tauranga! Rose and her menagerie at Old Forest School in Te Puke, Meg with her boxer Archie staring out the window into the rain in the Manawatu (pg 182) ... where do I stop, there are so many favourites?!
And most challenging? Working with animals and children is always going to be challenging, but saying that, the creation of images for Little Loves was relatively pain-free.
The most challenging would have most probably been the children with cats as pets. Cats are a lot more sensitive to strangers in the environment so it was challenging sometimes to capture the true relationship the child had with their cat; there are times I wish I could make myself invisible. Autistic Tommy with his bulldogs Gemma and Tank (pg 208) was determined to make us work hard on the day of his photos; his mother ended up using up a month's worth of bribes to get him to give me a smile.
Max from Mount Maunganui with hius bunny, Hoppy, from Rachael's new book, Little Loves. Photo/Rachael Hale McKenna
What are your five top tips for taking photos of a pet? 1. The first and foremost tip is 'Have patience!' you won't get anywhere if you expect to get the shot instantly. 2. Never force an animal to do something. 3. Make sure your pet is comfortable and feels safe; work in an environment they are used to, especially cats. 4. Choose a time of day that your animal will be in the right frame of mind; if your dog is a highly energetic dog, take it for a good walk first, it won't co-operate if it is too full of energy! And vice versa; if your dog is not-so-energetic, choose a time to work with them when they are not too tired.
Don't feed your dog if you want to use food to get them to perform, but then be careful they don't get over-enthusiastic. For example, labradors and food-oriented dogs can get a bit over-enthusiastic with food involved! With cats, you need to let them work at their own pace; if you want them to move to a certain place, entice them with a feather teaser or a trail of small tidbits.
If you pick up a cat and place them in a position they will almost always move away instantly, they need to make the decision to go there, fickle but gorgeous creatures.
5. Be prepared, be ready to get the shot, you may only get one chance! And know when to stop trying and try another day, don't overwork your pets, make it fun.
Giveaway indulge has two copies of Little Loves: New Zealand children and their favourite animals by Rachael Hale McKenna, RRP $49.99, published by Allen & Unwin. * To enter, like this post and our page on Facebook, www.facebook/indulgemag. Winners will be notified by and must check Facebook. Full terms and conditions on indulge Facebook page.
