From the Antarctic: High-flying success pays for peace in the wilderness

by SIMON COLLINS


The happiest man in Antarctica last week was Middle-earth's unofficial photographer, Andris Apse.

From his home in the tiny West Coast community of Okarito, Apse sells his landscape photographs around the world for up to $35,000 apiece.

Two of his works, showing George Sound in Fiordland and looking up Otago's Matukituki Valley towards Mt Aspiring, now decorate Air New Zealand jets as backdrops to Lord of the Rings characters Frodo, Sam, Arwen and Eowyn.

As the last aircraft was being readied for its unveiling, Apse was in the Antarctic with an open brief to photograph whatever he wanted, on only one condition - that Antarctica NZ had the first right to use his images.

The resulting photos, he says, will not make him a fortune.

"I've photographed Siberia, the bottom of South America at Cape Horn, the sub-Antarctic islands, Antarctica," he says.

"I know I'll never make enough from them to cover the film costs, let alone make a profit.

"It's just that I love extreme places. This is a bonus to satisfy my soul."

Apse invites New Zealanders to call him Andy. But he was born as Andris, 60 years ago in the wartime chaos of what was later the Soviet state of Latvia.

His father fought in the Latvian Army against Hitler's invasion, was captured and spent several years in a Nazi prisoner of war camp.

As the Russian Army approached, he was freed on condition that he fight against the Russians.

Then he disappeared, presumed dead.

Three years later his young, heartbroken wife took her 5-year-old son, Andris, to the other side of the world under a resettlement programme for refugees.

Andris went to primary school in Browns Bay and high school at Bay of Islands College.

He joined the Forest Service "because they were offering a free flight to Nelson".

A research station in Rangiora, Canterbury, gave him the chance to work in the central North Island, on the West Coast and in Fiordland.

"I developed a passion for photography because I fell in love with Fiordland," he says. "I wanted somehow to record it and show everyone how wonderful it was."

A friendly chemist in Rangiora allowed him to share his premises and go into business as a photographer.

"I hung my landscapes up - and promptly starved," says Apse. So for the next 15 years, he turned to the staple trade of the small-town photographer - weddings, portraits, passports and commercial photography.

In his spare time, he took his family on holidays. A photo of his wife and children walking on a wild West Coast beach was one of several used by the Tourist and Publicity Department on tourist posters.

His breakthrough came when the marketing people at Air New Zealand saw those posters. "Suddenly there were two of them on my doorstep," he says.

Would he, they wondered, be interested in photographing other landscapes for the airline?

"I was tripping over my tongue. I was thrilled," he says. The airline commissioned photos in New Zealand and overseas.

Since 1983, Apse has been a fulltime landscape photographer. His pastoral scenes promote New Zealand meat, and his wilderness images provide the settings for Mercedes, Peugeot, BMW and Chevrolet car advertisements. Even a Dutch menswear chain found him through his website, andrisapse.com.

He carries a satellite phone and a laptop with 50,000 images with him everywhere, even in Antarctica, so that he can respond to calls immediately.

Apse has become one of the world's leading landscape photographers, secure enough to move five years ago to Okarito, surrounded on all sides by the Westland National Park.

But he has not forgotten his origins. Ten years ago, a Latvian visitor met his mother in Christchurch and heard the story of her husband. The visitor decided to investigate when she went home.

A few months later, Mrs Apse received a letter in handwriting which she recognised from 50 years before.

"It was from my father. He was still alive, living on a collective farm in a remote area."

Apse booked his mother and himself on the next flight to Latvia. In two emotional months, they found that not only was her husband still alive, but so were her two sisters, who she had also thought were dead.

A year later, Mrs Apse died.

"It seemed as though she had settled her affairs," Apse says. "She was totally content. She had been living for 50 years not knowing.

"It was tragic. She had a wasted life, absolutely wasted."

But her legacy is her son's photography. The wild places that have soothed his soul now offer solace to countless others.