For nearly two years Northland doctor Chris Reid photographed his patients. Greg Dixon talks to him on the eve of an Auckland exhibition of the result.
In an airy, white-walled space upstairs at Northland's Turner Centre, Dr Chris Reid's patients crowd in. Many are beaming, others laughing. Quite a few are grey-haired, some are just kids. One or two even appear to be obviously in pain. They represent the breadth of their community. But all of them have this in common: they are part of a most unusual photographic exhibition.
It might sound slightly mad, but for close to two years the Kerikeri GP photographed - with their permission, of course - more than 400 of his patients at the end of their 15-minute consultation.
It worked something like this: after each person had explained their symptoms or brought Reid up-to-date on their condition and they'd heard his conclusions or diagnosis, he would quietly ask whether he might take a photograph of them. He thought, he laughs now, that they'd all say no. "And of course, they all said 'yes', quite surprisingly."
The selected highlights of these short, intimate photo sessions have just been published in a book called Patient: Portraits From A Doctor's Surgery, many prints of which were hanging around the walls of the Turner Centre's upstairs bar as we talked. A part of the exhibition will move to Auckland next weekend. Profits from both shows and the book will be going to St John.
The idea for the project formed a dozen years ago when Reid, who moved to New Zealand from Britain a decade ago, was on a house call while working as a GP in Dorset.
"I went to see this old boy. When he came to see me at the surgery he was always in his blazer, tie, medals. He was a war veteran. At home, it dawned on me he was living in a chair basically - pills on his left, cans of beer and cigarettes on his right. The carpet at his feet was worn out; curtains drawn; a shaft of light. I realised there was a photo- journalistic story to be told. I thought, 'Wow, I need to document that. How do I do that?'"
Reid had trained as doctor at the University of Newcastle Medical School in Britain and had served 10 years in the Royal Marines - including service with the Royal Navy's special forces, the Special Boat Service. But he had long harboured the idea of being a photographer too.
"I've always had a love of portrait photography, there's something about taking pictures of people, far more than landscapes.
"When you leave the Navy you get what is called a resettlement grant. I was a doctor so I didn't really need to be resettled, I was a GP. So I used my grant to do a course in photography at Bournemouth with the idea that I just liked it."
Mary, 76. Photo / Chris Reid
It was a dozen years after seeing that old chap in his home, and his wife buying him good camera, that Reid finally embarked the project that became Patient. The hundreds of photos were taken in his surgery using his eight-year-old Canon D5 Mk I and two lenses, a 14mm wide angle and a 25mm. He says there's been no, well, doctoring of the photographs, no photoshopping, but he has tweaked colours and sometimes put images into black and white.
Philosophically the project was important for two broad reasons. One is the photography. Could he take a good picture? "Could I ever get to a standard where people would like my pictures? That's an 'art' question, I guess."
This question was answered, as least in part, when Reid won the $1500 People's Choice Award at the Northland Art Awards this time last year and Craig Potton Publishing agreed to do the book earlier this year.
"But the deeper [philosophical reason], I realised, was that there were layers to this project," Reid says. "There was the thing that we all see a GP, everyone of us sees a GP sometime and we see them at different times in our lives, or our friends or family do. So there was this connection, this social connection that I was trying to capture. The illness is the glue. But really it's about this wonderful array of people. I tried to show that connection, that you were part of a community whether you know it or not."
Certainly the broad church of Northland's community is represented in the book and the exhibition: rich and poor, old and young, white and brown and, this is slightly unnerving, nude and clothed.
One couple, local avocado growers Bruce and Marguerite (71 and 69 at the time photo was taken) got their kit off for the picture. It happens that they are naturalists.
"Nearly always people asked 'what am I supposed to do [for the picture]?'. Obviously a lot of the time they thought 'am I suppose to relate [the photograph] to my health issue?' Once they were happy to have their picture taken I would say 'I just want you to look at me through the lens or look out the window or do what you feel represents you'. I used that line a lot. When Bruce and Marguerite came in I said, 'If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, just remember it might end up in a book.' But they're naturalists, so they took their clothes off and we took a picture."
Gallery: Click here to see more of Dr Chris Reid's images
Image 1 of 8: Foster, 83. Photo / Dr Chris Reid
That photo, while included in the book, is not in the exhibition. However, this particular picture cuts to the very heart of the project: it, like all of Reid's pictures, is about trust.
"I think so. I think that's right. You could argue that's what a photographer is meant to achieve as well."
GPs, particularly in smaller communities, are a little like priests (or at least a little like priests used to be), respected and trusted confidants for the community, I suggest.
"I think being a good GP is about making sure that you're the patient's advocate and you're trusted by them. But this project was really about making sure I got the fine line right of not abusing that trust. And I've gone over the top to make sure that was okay."
With his next photographic project, Reid, who also sits on the Northland District Health Board, hopes to extend the trust and community aspects from Patient by documenting issues, in particular poverty, facing the region.
"It's not about doing the same old, same old. I'm not into this for commercial success, I want to challenge myself."
Patient: Portraits From A Doctor's Surgery (Craig Potton Publishing $39.99) is in bookshops now. A selection of photos from the book will be exhibited at the Auckland Camera Centre in Morningside, November 8-22.
