Churches Project keeps Whanganui Camera Club members busy

St John's Ohakune. Photo/Karen Douglas

Whanganui Camera Club is well into its Churches Project, with over 20 churches in the district now photographed.

It’s quite a challenge - there are over 60 places of worship in the Whanganui area and the club hopes to include most of these, aiming to document the exteriors and the inside details of all of them.

A recent highlight for the team was a weekend trip to Ohakune, Raetihi and Hiruharama Jerusalem to capture images of the local churches, many with outstanding heritage value.

“By the time we arrived in Ohakune ‘drizzle’ had turned into a steady downpour - not so good for outdoor shots,” says club president John Smart. “But inside the churches – St Joseph’s and St John’s churches - we were able to use indoor lighting and enlist all the technology of modern cameras to capture some truly lovely images of stained glass windows, intricately carved altars, richly polished wooden pews and other interesting adornments.

Wet in Ohakune. Photo/Maartje Morton

“Some of these churches go back to early settler times and there was much evidence of this as we roamed around.

“Raetihi was our next stop and here we photographed St Patrick’s and St Mary’s, again lovely interiors,” says Smart. “After Raetihi, the team drove to Jerusalem for an overnight stay in the old convent ready to photograph the distinctive St Joseph’s Church there in the morning.

“Koroniti Marae with its beautiful Pepara Church was our last stop for the weekend, and we were very appreciative of the hospitality offered us there. We only hope that our photographs will do this and all the other churches on our whistlestop tour down the River Rd proper justice,” he said.

Like the club’s successful houses project, the churches will be a feature of the club’s annual exhibition in October, as well as an audio-visual featuring a complete digital record of all the churches photographed in the project.

Selected digital and print images will be archived at the Alexander Library – Te Rerenga Mai o te Kāuru for future generations. The club has been awarded a $1574 grant from the Whanganui District Creative Communities fund to cover the cost of printing and gallery hire for the churches exhibition.