Nelson High Country

item details

NameNelson High Country

ProductionHerbert Guthrie-Smith; circa 1920; Nelson

Classificationblack-and-white negatives, gelatin dry plate negatives

Materialssheet glass, silver, photographic plates, photographic gelatin

Materials Summarygelatin glass negative

Dimensionsplate: 4.5 (height), 6.5 (length)

Registration NumberB.004092

Overview

This extract originally appeared in New Zealand Photography Collected: 175 Years of Photography in Aotearoa (Te Papa Press, 2025).

The farmer, writer, naturalist and birdwatcher Herbert Guthrie-Smith is best known for his book Tutira: The story of a New Zealand sheep station (1921), a closely observed cultural and natural history of his Hawke’s Bay farm. Guthrie-Smith understood Tutira’s story to be typical of the impact of European settlement on the land, and came to doubt the wisdom of his own activities as a farmer; in his 1936 book, Sorrows and Joys of a New Zealand Naturalist, he called the loss of indigenous flora and fauna due to land clearances a ‘sad, bad, mad, incomprehensible business’.

This photograph of the remains of a forest burnt down to create a farm reflects Guthrie-Smith’s deeply felt understanding of the ecological impact of farming. It provides a poignant counter to the many other photographs that extolled the taming and settling of the land.