The 79 images in Glen Busch’s new collection of photographs, A Man Holds a Fish, were taken mainly in the 1970s and 80s, in Auckland and Christchurch, with a few in Australia. All are black and white, their subjects, often standing in their dirty, dusty places of work, some sitting, some in bed, all staring directly at the camera. Most are proudly blue-collar, armed with tools, paint pots, grapes, chickens. They are people he or his parents knew in his youth, he says, “ordinary people”. His mother indulged in “constant over-embellishment”, he writes in the book’s preface.
“I became attracted to the unadorned and have tried to see what unfolds in front of me in a less complicated way.”
Busch, who left school at 14, initially working in a tyre company, and later factories and mines, says the figures in the book were not directed at all. He quotes another writer, saying he was keen to “affirm life without lying about it”.
The photos were always a collaboration, he says, and his part was choosing to make the image. He says in the book, “I became a maker of images, a gatherer of stories. My work, as I think of it, has been to preserve the stories, or, in the case of the book in front of you, the images, of people I met along the way.”
Busch cites the Hungarian-French artist Brassaï as an influence. He didn’t enjoy school much, and used to bunk off into the city for the 11am movies. But one day, some time later, he stepped into an art gallery and saw an exhibition of Brassaï's photographs, and his life was changed. He, too, photographed in black and white, which was the medium of the time, but also one he preferred. “Colour adds another element.”
Art writer Peter Ireland says in a short essay in the book that “even after half a century, Busch’s work retains a vividness and force in its resistance to any tendency to idealise in his portraiture”.
When this book was first discussed, Busch found his negatives were not in good shape after the “vagabond ways” of his youth ‒ some were mildewed ‒ and he had to rescan them. Busch had great admiration for his subjects in the book, he says, doing hard, boring, often dangerous jobs, sticking them out for their families.
“I wasn’t very good at it myself.”
He was never interested in photographing well-known people, though he did the odd professional job, such as taking pictures of former Australian PM Bob Hawke for the Listener.
He wanted to understand his subjects. Everybody has a story, says Busch, who is now teaching at the University of Canterbury. He adds many of these people are interesting and eloquent. “It’s good for us to know each other.”
A Man Holds a Fish by Glenn Busch (Te Papa Press, $75 hb)
