New Life for the Tohora - photographer Richie Robinson's award-winning image. Photo / Courtesy Natural History Museum www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy
New Life for the Tohora - photographer Richie Robinson's award-winning image. Photo / Courtesy Natural History Museum www.nhm.ac.uk/wpy
Former Hawke's Bay Today photographer Richie Robinson never saw himself competing at the Olympics, but he has, and triumphed, at what some call the "Olympics of wildlife photography."
And it all started in Napier where he grew up, the grandson of long-time Napier Daily Telegraph photographer the late Rich Marshall, who outside of his career specialised in underwater photography and with an affinity for Marineland.
It rubbed off in the passion that consumed Robinson, who was in London last month to win a major category at the Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year.
His image, New Life for the Tohorā, regarded as an extremely rare and possibly unprecedented capture of underwater mating of the once near-extinct southern right whale on August 13, 2020, off Deas Head, Port Ross, in the sub-Antarctic Auckland Islands, claimed top honours in the Oceans - The Bigger Picture category.
A description posted by the museum says Robinson "captures a hopeful moment for a population of whales that has survived against all odds".
"Hindered by poor visibility, Richard used a polecam to photograph the whales gradually moving towards his boat," it says. "Pushing his camera to its limits in the dark water, he was relieved to find the image pin-sharp and the moment of copulation crystallised in time. When ready to mate, the female southern right whale rolls onto its back, requiring the male to reach its penis across the female's body."
He was also highly commended with The Right Look, an entry in the Animal Portrait section of the competition, which had 38,575 entries from 93 countries across 19 categories.
The 58th Wildlife Photographer of the Year, selected from category winners, was Texas photographer Karine Aigner, who focused her lens on bees.
The images are now part of an exhibition in London and set to tour the world, including New Zealand.
Richie Robinson in 2013 after a winning at the New Zealand Media Awards, with photos of Wales. Photo / NZME
Robinson started work as a press photographer at the Napier Daily Telegraph in 1997 and was at the Hawke's Bay for about the first year after it started in 1999 in a merger of the daily and the Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune.
He then headed for the New Zealand Herald, where he won numerous awards including the annual media awards Photographer of the Year, before deciding, in 2004, that it had become a struggle to handle daily news photography with the growing passion and demands of wildlife photography, and a new role as a dad.
"Something had to give," says Robinson, who now works mainly assignments feeding National Geographic, with little rest after the return from London to prepare for the next expedition, starting this week heading south again to the Bounty Islands, and still trying to come to grips with the success.
He'd entered the competition several times over the years, without victory nor high-commendation, and, ironically, the latest winning image had also been entered in other competitions, without recognition.
Most important, however, was not so much the photograph – "I knew it was an image of something that hasn't been shot before" – but the image's role in highlighting the preservation of the animal."
It had in the 1920s been reported there were just 13 surviving female southern right whales, but, largely through New Zealand initiatives the population is "back in the thousands".
"To me this is a real story of hope," he says.
It was in London that he particularly recalled the influence on his life of grand-dad Rich Marshall, from Wednesbury in Staffordshire, England, and who emigrated to New Zealand and joined the staff of Napier's Daily Telegraph in 1965.
He became the chief photographer and worked for the paper for almost 30 years – becoming a life member of the Press Photographers Association - but outside of work also specialising in underwater photography.
Robinson says he "never actually dived" with his grand-dad, but in London, he was "very much in my mind."
He had been a big influence not only on his photography but in getting down to the Napier Sailing Club, yachting and eventually surfing.
His grandfather passed away in 2004, and Robinson says he doubts he would have foreseen himself on the stage in London.
"It's all a bit crazy," he said late last week, a fortnight after his moment in the spotlight. "It's just starting to sink in. They call it the Olympics of wildlife photography."
