A delicate thumping

By LINDA HERRICK arts editor

A flick of the light switch, the blip of the remote, the ping of the microwave: there's so much lazy comfort to be taken from electric power surging into our homes. Yet few of us have more than a vague notion about where it comes from, beyond the switches and maybe a pole outside the house.

In this region, the hydro and geothermal power schemes which marshall the mighty Waikato River are the source, and as such, an odd subject for an arts page, you may think.

But the eight projects, built by the Ministry of Works between 1940 and 1964, have led to an inspired collaboration between Auckland photographer Patrick Reynolds and Mighty River Power, which wanted to add class to its 2001 annual report.

Commissioned to create a series of images for the report, Reynolds has gone on to exhibit the large square-format black and white Power series to acclaim and interest at the Waikato Museum of Art and History, and now at the John Leech Gallery in Auckland.

To describe the images as "black and white" does them no justice, such is the scale of shades between, as well as the clarity of contrast and shrewd use of light.

There are no people in the photos, which range from aerial shots of the Tongariro delta emerging into Lake Taupo, to a carving at Marae Pakaketaiari, to multiple images of the dams, turbines and empty cathedral-like interiors in plants such as Maraetai I and II, Karapiro, Arapuni and the geothermal plant at Mokai.

Reynolds used a Hasselblad camera, but points out "it's not the equipment, it's what's in the heart and eye".

"I wanted to make them thumpingly delicate," he says. "What attracted me was that dams are kind of heroic, foolish things, to try and stop a river - especially one like the Waikato.

"The dams themselves are really impressive. You get below them and you can feel the weight of the water."

Of course, access is strictly limited. Members of the public cannot go near these dams. It wasn't always that way.

"One of the things I found a bit sad was you go to these places now and you get through security and so forth, and once you are in the complexes, there are all these huge picnic tables and chairs designed by the engineers as public amenities. So big, no one's taking them anywhere, but no one's allowed near them."

For around 15 years Reynolds has successfully combined a commercial career (especially known for cover shoots for magazines such as Art New Zealand, Vogue Living, NZ Home & Entertainment, NZ House & Garden) with art and architecture photography.

Houses, people, dams, scenery - "if something is beautiful, to me, that makes it tremendously difficult to shoot it well. You've got to get past the obvious beauty, show it in some fresh way, otherwise it's just chocolate box."

So for the Power series, "there was no particular programme, I shot whatever appealed."

With access to all areas and the company of an MRP guide, Reynolds and his mate completed the project during two one-week trips in the middle of the winter to take advantage of the low neutral light.

"We worked our way and drank our way around," he recalls. "It snowed, which I'm grateful for, it got me under cover and that's how I found the marae near Mokai."

He had researched the history of the projects beforehand, including the milestone book People, Politics and Power Stations (published by the Electricity Corporation and Internal Affairs' Historical Branch in 1998), which he describes as "fascinating".

"You will find a couple of power stations over-represented in the series because they were visually dramatic. It was a discretely 20th-century project, there will be no more dams on the Waikato.

"The dam-building not only flattened the bush, but there was no reference to the treaty at all. But there were interesting political subjects all the way through ...

"One of the things I wanted to work on was this idea in our culture, maybe subconsciously, that only natural things can be beautiful. I wish to reject that.

"There's some really beautiful architecture going on here [in the stations], high modernism at work. And there was the imposition of heroic acts upon nature. We've now wussed out, too reverential of nature now.

"Being scared can lead to stasis. It's important to realise" - he points to the exquisite Arapuni print, which shows a hillside covered in bush next to a roaring sluice of water - "that trees grow back. That was once scorched earth."

Reynolds believes it took real vision for MRP to decide their annual report could also "look like they're sponsoring the arts. It could be done more often".

He laughs. "I'd love to shoot in a nuclear power plant, but I doubt the owners would like to use the resulting images."

So next up will be a project which moves from this so-called black and white series to one he will only describe for now as "pink stuff".

Where and when

* What: Patrick Reynolds' Power

* Where: John Leech Gallery, Khartoum Place

* When: until April 5