THROUGH A FEMALE LENS

Through Shaded Glass: Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860-1960 by Lissa Mitchell, published by Te Papa Press, is available now. The cover shows Auckland Domain’s Wintergarden in a photo taken by German Jew Lily Byttine, who had fled from the Nazis. During the war she was prohibited from using her camera outside of her home because of her status as an alien. Picture supplied by Te Papa Press

The Herald’s Wynsley Wrigley looks at Lissa Mitchell’s gloriously illustrated publication entitled Through Shaded Glass — Women and Photography in Aotearoa New Zealand 1860 –1960.This article concentrates on the chapter about Gisborne photographers.

Gisborne was a town of less than 17,000 people in the 1930s but photography was booming with the public having more than 10 studios to choose from.

Lissa Mitchell’s research shows pre-World War 2 photography was not an all-male bastion.

Local women featured prominently in the profession, in sufficient numbers to generate a Gisborne-specific chapter in Ms Mitchell’s new book looking at female photographers, professional and amateur, Māori and Pākehā, and European migrants, operating across the country from the 1860s to the 1960s.

Te Papa curator of historical photography Lissa Mitchell has leaped into this little-researched part of New Zealand to produce her fascinating book entitled Through Shaded Glass.

The book features over 250 full-colour and black-and-white high-quality images and tells the stories of pioneering women photographers. It ventures into the photographic practices they used, their studios, and the streets, private homes and outdoors in which they worked.

Ms Mitchell writes that many women entered the profession by working with a family member or friend.

There were often practical reasons for doing so, but such arrangements also overcame the moral conventions of the era.

The Witters sisters — Joyce, Margaret and Lesley — were one such example in Gisborne.

Joyce had been the assistant for Basil Sharp, the original owner of the Basil Sharp Studio.

Basil was operating the business as early as 1937 despite being only 19 years of age and was made an Associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain years later.

Joyce was left in charge when Basil signed up to fight in World War 2.

But Basil was an early fatality losing his life even before making it to front-line combat.

The air force volunteer was killed in a training accident at Wigram in 1940.

All three sisters took over the business after his death and kept the studio in his name until about 1946 when all three had married.

Mr Sharp’s sister Florence was also a photographer and ran her own studio dating back as far the 1920s.

She described herself as a professional photographer with a speciality in colour work.

By 1932 she was known as Fifi Wynn-Williams and was a wife and mother living in Auckland where she continued working in photography until the 1960s.

When she left Gisborne, her assistant Nancy Graham took over the premises at 47 Bright Street (opposite McDonalds) and opened her own studio, The Attic, in partnership with Nina Murphy.

In 1939 Graham wound down the business in anticipation of her marriage in 1940 and advised customers to order photographs and colouring work as soon as possible as “all negatives will be destroyed”.

Another Gisborne woman, Nellie Millard, took over her late husband’s studio in 1936.

Edward, who had not been in good health since returning from World War 1, committed suicide. He also suffered from chemical poisoning contracted in connection with his work as a photographer.

Lillian Stratton, the couple’s twenty-two-year-old daughter, pregnant with her first child, but separated from her abusive husband, ran the studio together with her mother.

Lillian felt her father blamed himself for her marriage breakdown as she had met her future husband when he came to the studio to be photographed.

By 1939 grandmother, mum and then five-year-old Barbara were living together in Wigan in the north of England. Lillian was recorded as being divorced and a professional photographer.

More than 400 women photographers listed

Lissa Mitchell is curator of historical photography at Te Papa and has held previous roles in photographic collection management and preventive photographic conservation roles at the New Zealand Film Archive (now part of Ngā Taonga Sound and Vision) and the National Library of New Zealand Te Puna Mātauranga o Aotearoa.

She has a degree in art history from Te Herenga Waka Victoria University of Wellington.

Prior to a career in photographic history, Lissa was an experimental filmmaker.

She said her book evolved from many years of researching photographs made by Pākehā men during the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

“I became curious about who else had also used photography during this time and what they did with it.

“Basic questions really — was there really only a handful of women involved in photography? And why are their legacies largely overlooked?

“Initially, I rounded up about 20 names to start looking into.

“Most of these were women who are recorded as photographers here in some capacity, but don’t feature strongly in the written accounts of photography here.

“However, as research continued the list of

names kept growing to well over 400 — and is still growing.”