Top lensman puts Wairarapa on global stage

Wairarapa landscapes have gone global with the success of a Greytown photographer vying for the Oscars of the art form with images of home.
Photographer Salvi Frika and his artist fiancee, Lisa Matthys, shifted to Greytown from Nelson three years ago, where they opened Harvest Art Gallery to show and sell their and other artists' works.
This week Frika received an honourable mention in the fine art landscape section of the US-based International Photography Awards for a series of five images titled Landscapes of Wairarapa, with the competitive accolade capping a string of creative successes he has achieved since the couple shifted to the region.
The top three awards winners are announced at The Lucie Awards in New York that are acknowledged as the Oscars of photography, Frika said.
"To get an honourable mention is pretty humbling when your competitors are of the highest calibre like this - the world's best - and Wairarapa, which has powerful and commanding landscapes, gets on to the world stage as well.
"I get inspiration from the natural and urban landscape, perspectives that I think have equilibrium.
"Form, line and light that come together to achieve a calm, solemn freedom that I can escape into," Frika said.
Frika will have his winning Wairarapa images included in an IPA publication and in October will travel to New York with his partner for the Lucie Awards and the networking opportunities the event offers, he said.
"The awards are a foot in the door, so to speak, for both myself and Lisa where our art careers are concerned and it's a
chance to meet with gallerists, curators
and some of the best photographers in
the world."
Frika is a self-taught photographer who took up his first camera as a child.
Once he brought the calling in to focus as an adult, he took night classes and workshops on developing and printing processes before building his own darkroom in 1991.
In 1999, after spending 14 years as an automotive engineer, Frika travelled for six months through Europe before finding himself in New York and rekindling his enthusiasm for photography.
He worked for six months as advertising photographer at the Nelson Mail after returning to New Zealand, which allowed him "to explore the direction of my own work through numerous important campaigns", he said.
"Balance, form, line and quality of light are all elements of what I consider is my signature style and I am always searching for that unique perspective - the captured moments in time we might otherwise overlook."
Frika said he has a joint exhibition of his work titled SoloSystem at the Expressions Arts & Entertainment Centre in Upper Hutt.
The exhibition features work from his fiancee, who is also a 2009 World of Wearable Art show finalist as well as pieces from artists Prakash Patel, from Wanganui, and Dean Raybould, from Takaka.