Elisabeth Easther talks to travel writer and photographer James Heremaia.
I was born in Taumarunui and spent my early childhood — with my three brothers and two sisters — in a town called Ohura. My parents worked for Railways, my father on the old steamers, my mother in the refreshment rooms. Life was spent outside, climbing trees, throwing stones, swimming in rivers, eeling, fighting with the other kids. It was a great childhood, we had nothing but each other.
I was snooping around and I found Mum's Box Brownie. I'd press the button and it made a neat clunking sound. I had no idea what it was or what it did but I just loved pressing that shutter. Then my auntie put some film in it, got it developed and — hey presto — I realised I'd taken my first ever photos. I've never been without a camera since.
In the 60s I took pictures of just about everything. Life as it was from a kid's point of view. I remember taking a photo of six old Maori ladies sitting on a porch at a tangi, with their flax kete, black scarves, smoking pipes. They had really wrinkly faces and chiselled moko. Those photos are lost now and I could just about cry, thinking about it.
My parents divorced, my mother remarried and we moved to New Plymouth. During my teenage years I'd return to Ohura on a railcar that travelled through the night. It was probably only a four-hour trip through the back blocks of Taranaki but I felt like I was going around the world. That's where my love of travel began. My stepfather's generation of Maori men really pushed us kids to have a trade. "Get a job with the government son, and you've got a job for life." The next three years I trained to be a fitter-welder, but my heart was with my camera.
