Coinciding with the European colonisation of Aotearoa, the invention of photography created an unprecedented prism through which to imagine and make sense of the world at a time of turbulent social change. The camera’s ability to capture detailed likenesses of people, places and events provoked both wonder and suspicion, and brought new commercial opportunities and advancements in mass entertainment, advertising, surveying and scientific research. A Different Light presents a selection of some of the earliest photographs produced in Aotearoa. These images, dating from the 1850s to 1900, are drawn from the collections of three major research libraries: Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum, the Alexander Turnbull Library and Uare Taoka o Hākena Hocken Collections. The exhibition traces photography’s rapid development from the unique daguerreotypes made in the late 1840s to the widely shared cartes-de-visite of the 1860s and the emergence of amateur photography in the 1880s. By examining the production and reception of photographs of mana whenua and settlers, as well as their environments, A Different Light prompts questions about how early photography in Aotearoa shaped how we view ourselves and our place in the world.

The technology of photography emerged as a seemingly miraculous device that revealed Māori and Pākehā to themselves — and to each other — at a time of tense encounter and hopeful exchange. A Different Light explores this unfolding narrative through a series of themes which highlight the techniques developed by professional and amateur photographers. It shows the ways these images were commissioned, collected, perceived and used by an ever-growing audience. From miniature to mammoth, treasured portraits to mugshots, candid snaps to highly manipulated creations, taonga to propaganda, and from dramatic landscapes to backyards: this is a story about how photography became an integral part of our social fabric.

A Different Light: First Photographs of Aotearoa is accompanied by an illustrated publication published by Auckland University Press, and edited by Catherine Hammond and Shaun Higgins, with contributions by Angela Wanhalla, Shaun Higgins, Paul Diamond, Anna Petersen and Natalie Marshall.

Shaun Higgins is curator, pictorial at Tāmaki Paenga Hira Auckland War Memorial Museum. Higgins has been working with photograph collections for over two decades, ranging from numerous exhibition contributions to research into unknown photographers. He has a background in anthropology, art history and photography combined with museum studies and specialist training in photographic care and identification. Current research interests include early New Zealand photographs, conflict photography, photographic technology and its application including digital, computer vision and photographic identification.

Anna Petersen is curator of photographs at Uare Taoka o Hākena Hocken Collections, and has been working full-time in this role since 2017. She has an MA in art history from the University of Canterbury and a doctorate in history from the University of Otago. Her publications include Hand in Hand: Photographers and Painters Alike (Hocken Collections, 2018); New Zealanders at Home: A Cultural History of Domestic Interiors, 1814–1914 (Otago University Press, 2001); and R. N. Field: The Dunedin Years, 1925–1945 (Manawatu Art Gallery, 1989).

Natalie Marshall is a historian at Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga, and a freelance researcher, curator and writer. She was curator of photographs at the Alexander Turnbull Library from 2011 to 2023, and has held previous roles in photographic acquisition, collection management, and arrangement and description in Wellington and London. She has an MA in museum and heritage studies from Victoria University of Wellington.