Overview
Brian Brake (1927-1988) was New Zealand’s best known photographer from the 1960s to the 1980s. He first made his name as an international photojournalist, photographing for picture magazines such as Life, National Geographic and Paris Match.
His most famous work was on the monsoon rains in India in 1960. This essay yielded the widely reproduced Monsoon girl, an image of a young woman feeling with pleasure the first rains on her face.
Brake was also well known in New Zealand for his 1963 best-selling book, New Zealand, gift of the sea and, in the 1980s, for his images associated with the Te Maori exhibition.
On the pages below you can find out more about Brian Brake himself - his career, his technique, and where he travelled.