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Fiona Goodall has spent the last 24 years working as a photojournalist for newspapers and magazines in New Zealand and beyond. Her photos of current events have often taken on a life of their own. Whether it’s a World War II veteran named John Sato who took four buses to join an anti-racism march in 2019 after the Al Noor Mosque shootings, or further afield, through an aerial shot of Tuvalu showing the stark realities of those most impacted today by the effects of climate change.
How did you know this was a special moment to capture? Did you know who he was?
I didn’t actually - I didn’t at all. He was pretty much at the end of the march. Normally, all of your focus is on the front, because you want to keep the momentum and keep up with what’s happening and not get left behind. But they’d sort of come down the hill towards Victoria Park, as I remember, going quite slowly at the end of the march, obviously with a bit of support.
He just looked like he was having the greatest time, he was chatting away to the policeman and the other guy who was giving him a hand. So, I just photographed it. Normally with that sort of thing, you don’t bother getting names because it’s too difficult. You can’t keep up with the march and get everyone’s name. But I thought, I’ll just go and get his name and find out his story, because he was moving slowly enough and I had got enough photos at that point anyway. Then he told me all about it - how he was 95 and was really passionate. He said he needed to be there and had caught all these buses to make it.
Without going and chatting and getting that information, it would just be another picture. But because it had that other element of him being so determined to be there, that resonated with people and gave it a bit more impact.
You almost had the role of the reporter as well then, which then makes the photo that much more powerful.
And I like doing that, I like actually telling stories and getting detailed captions. That’s part of what I’m into with photography.
He then passed away three years later at age 98, did you have much to do with him following capturing his photo?
Not at first. I did keep an eye on the photo and where it was used, and I googled him every now and again to see if he and the photo were still going well - he became a bit of a celebrity after that and was on the TV a couple of times telling his story about his history and things. It was cool to see that he became part of the story of that movement at the time. And I did see that he passed away, which was sad, but he was doing super well at 95 to be getting in there and marching - you don’t see that very often.
How did you come to travel to Tuvalu to do a photography feature on climate change?
Getty Images had a competition where you could pitch a feature idea to them and receive a grant to go and fulfill it. I had been to Tuvalu a couple of times as part of a Pacific mission with the government and the European Union, and it was then that really stuck with me. Just how tenuous their life and situation is, as climate change is affecting them more and more. I thought climate change was, and still is, a really important issue worldwide. So, I pitched that as I wanted to go and see how it looks now. I was selected and spent a week there hooning around on a motorbike photographing whatever I saw. I spoke to people and got out on a boat and got an overview of the issues that are facing. It was an incredible week spent there.
Flying in is where I first saw that tiny strip of land sandwiched between two oceans. I mean it’s pretty stark. Before I left the island, I realised I didn’t have any aerial photos. This was just a commercial flight from Tuvalu back to Fiji. I asked the pilot if he minded scootching around, doing a couple of circles so I can get a few pictures of the strip. He said absolutely and did a little circle. Luckily, I was in the window seat because this was literally just taken out of a commercial plane window. I didn’t have a drone, and at the time in 2018 it was probably on the cusp of people using drones. It just comes down to asking and doing. If you don’t ask, you don’t get. It’s when being a bit cheeky sometimes pans out.
What were your emotions during the trip?
People in Tuvalu are living the realities of climate change and you can feel it when you’re there. You go to one end of the island, and the water is literally on either side of this tiny strip. I felt really vulnerable there. They’re obviously used to it, but having lived through the cyclones we had here in Auckland and the amount of water that affected our lives in that time. If something like that happened in Tuvalu, there’s just nowhere to go. I suppose there will be a point where they’re not going to be able to live there. It’s scary.
