A panoramic of Esk Valley showing full devastation from top to bottom. Photo / Michael Farr
A panoramic of Esk Valley showing full devastation from top to bottom. Photo / Michael Farr
Local photographer Michael Farr has lived in Hawke’s Bay almost his whole life, growing up and attending school in Taradale, before travelling overseas and then spending the last 15 years in Wellington.
Around two years ago, Michael moved back to live in Havelock North.
When Cyclone Gabrielle hit, the fulltime photographer and his family weren’t impacted too much, however, they knew a lot of friends and wider family who were heavily affected, with their homes being completely devastated.
Te Mata Peak Crying after Cyclone Gabrielle devastates Hawke’s Bay. Photo / Michael Farr
The cyclone had kept Farr’s young baby awake most of the night, so the next morning after the cyclone had passed, he took his camera and sleep-deprived child on a journey out to check on his mother’s house in Havelock North, as she was away at the time, hoping his baby would get some sleep on the drive.
Farr said, “Being a photographer, I take my camera most places I go. I was blown away with the destruction that I was seeing, so I knew I had to capture it.”
View looking downstream showing Petane Station's destroyed vines covered in silt. Esk Valley. Photo / Michael Farr
The first photo he took was actually at his mother’s house, to show her the beautiful big tree in her back garden had fallen over on a fence.
After that, he soon realised that the fallen tree was nothing compared to the stories he was beginning to hear from friends and family.
Flooding behind Awatoto fertiliser works 10 days after Cyclone Gabrielle. Photo / Michael Farr
“I received a message from my dad letting me know that our family friends were airlifted off their roof in Esk Valley. At that point I couldn’t quite comprehend what was actually going on so I had to go out and see for myself,” Farr said.
When communications were back up and running, and the tales of the damage were being shared, Farr decided he needed to try to take some different images from other locations that he was hearing about and lived close to.
View looking upstream of the destruction of Zeelandt Brewery and surrounding houses including Hukarere Girls’ College. Photo / Michael Farr
“A lot of images started coming through social media that day and the amount of sheer devastation was so large and unfathomable, I had to actually comprehend the size,” he said.
Farr went from seeing full evacuation footage and heroic stories of people saving each other to shooting photos of the aftermath in those exact locations.
Wet silt Inside a red stickered Esk Valley house. Photo / Michael Farr
“I was shooting from a drone’s perspective of Esk Valley a week later. It really blew me away to see the sheer size of the devastation that the water and silt had made, from side to side of the valley had completely destroyed everything in its path.
“At that moment seeing with my own eyes was the hardest for me as we hadn’t really been shown much on the news about the vast size of the destruction.”
Petane Station’s amazingly now famous Kombi van on the side of the highway. Photo / Michael Farr
Farr has been posting his images in parts to his Facebook page and said the response from the public on social media has been huge.
However, before he posted them, there was a video made from Farr’s Esk Valley content that generated a lot of chat and that pushed him to share these images weeks later.
Rural lawn tennis court ruined in the wake of Cyclone Gabrielle flooding. Photo / Michael Farr
“It moved me into a position of feeling like I was maybe helping people process what had happened a little bit more, seeing the rawness of a lot of the locations affected does bring it home for sure.”
Farr said he felt like his photos had gotten the recognition on social media they did because after a few weeks “heaps of the media coverage was getting quite forgotten about nationally, all the while people were still digging silt off their property days after”.
