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Jane Ussher was the chief photographer for the New Zealand Listener for 29 years. It was the role that defined her celebrated career; she has been a key player in documenting New Zealand culture through images and is widely considered one of the country’s best portrait photographers. Now freelance, she has created and curated a series of political portraits for the Listener in the lead-up to the 2023 general election.

Ussher, alongside New Zealand Listener art director Derek Ward, went into the series first and foremost wanting the leaders of the five leading political parties to look unguarded, relaxed, and spontaneous. “That was the driving force – the thing that was most important for me to achieve in all of the portraits,” she says.

They’re both clearly laughing. Did you say something to make them smile?

This is where Christopher Luxon loves being. He’s that role, and Nicola Willis was far more relaxed than the sort of person I thought she was going to be. In fact, there was a lot of laughing going from all of the politicians I photographed, not just Luxon and Willis.

The day this photo was taken, one of their members was leaving Parliament and was doing his valedictory speech. And so, Todd Muller was wandering through as this photo was being taken. He was standing beside me being hysterical. That kind of helped a little with the laughing.

Christopher Luxon and Nicola Willis. Photo / Jane Ussher

Was Muller cracking a lot of jokes?

No, he wasn’t there to be a joker, they were just chatting about things that were going to happen during the day. There’s a lot to talk about when someone’s leaving Parliament like that, it’s a big deal. They know him well; you could see there was a lot of respect between the three of them.

There were going to be a whole lot of valedictory speeches, Parliament was very busy at the time. There were a lot of visitors going through, so it didn’t feel particularly formal. When we were in the place we were shooting, there were no TV journalists around, so there was nobody to be on their guard with. I’m imagining when you’ve got TV cameras and microphones in front of you, you’re a lot more wary than you would be when it’s just me.