How I got the shot: That photo of Whina Cooper
Veteran photographer Michael Tubberty says it was just by chance he captured one of the most famous images in the history of Aotearoa.
The long-time New Zealand Herald photographer was assigned the job of covering the start of the Māori land march, which began at Te Hāpua in Northland on September 14, 1975.
The hikoi, led by 79-year-old Whina Cooper, began with about 50 people and swelled to 5000 marchers by the time they reached Parliament, where a petition signed by 60,000 people was handed to then prime minister Bill Rowling. The march and petition were protesting against the continuing loss of Māori land.
Tubberty took a few pictures of the hikoi starting off.
‘‘TVNZ had hired an amphibious plane, which parked on the water near the marae and they took a roll of film back for us,’’ he says.
But he did wire other images back to the NZ Herald.
‘‘I was delayed packing it all up and the march had gone. So, I followed up in a car and TVNZ did the same thing. And there was Whina out on her own walking, doing her bit. It was luck really.’’
The land rights leader was at the back of the march because all the younger people had gone on ahead. ‘‘She got out of a car, someone was driving her, she wanted to do her bit,’’ he says.
‘‘People say it was a jack-up, but it was no jack-up. I just came across her – there’s Whina, that’s going to be the shot.
‘‘I got some front-on views, and she passed me with Irenee, her granddaughter (age three). Then I saw the little hill she was going to climb and I thought, ‘by God, that’s the picture’. It says everything – the long road ahead for the Māori over their lands. That’s why it stands out, I think,’’ he says.
But that’s not the photo he sent to the NZ Herald.
‘‘I wired a front-on version that the Herald used the next morning. The back one, I kept that. The boss said, ‘thank God you did because it wouldn’t have wired too well’.’’
Tubberty knew the black-andwhite photo was good, but never dreamed it would be embraced by a nation. ‘‘They are calling it an icon of New Zealand. A lot of people painted it in colour.’’
However, the image wasn’t named best photo at the annual national media awards.
‘‘The Dame Whina photo didn’t do too well because in those days they had Australian judges, who didn’t have a clue what it was about. It got second prize,’’ he says, laughing.
Ten years later, Tubberty organised to revisit that photo, so he picked up Irenee and they drove up to meet the famous kuia at her home of Panguru in the northern Hokianga Harbour. By this stage, she had become Dame Whina Cooper.
Tubberty photographed them again, still in black and white, but this time in a place significant to Dame Whina.
‘‘There’s a little hill in the back of the picture, ‘that’s my mountain’ she said. I’ll never forget that’.’’
Or the land rights campaigner. ‘‘I liked her very much. By God, she’d have you on. You had to watch your Ps and Qs. I met her several times and photographed her.’’
Dame Whina died on March 26, 1994, under Panguru mountain where she had been born 98 years before.
Tubberty, now 83, kicked off his photography career with a Kodak box camera at age 14.
‘‘The first picture I ever shot was the Queen’s boat (SS Gothic) in Auckland Harbour in 1953.’’
A few years later he began to provide free photos to the weekly Waitakare Gazette, and went on to join the NZ Herald as a cadet photographer. ‘‘I never had a better job.’’
On the way home from the land march, Tubberty visited a little farmhouse and a man known as Norm of the North, who talked about a drought. ‘‘I said how are you surviving? He said, ‘I’ve got my guitar over there and a few of us sing for our supper at a nightclub in Kaitaia’.
‘‘I got a picture of him at the front gate and his dog yodels with him. That was a front-page picture. That’s how things develop.’’
Both photographs of Dame Whina and Irenee are among more than 120 photojournalism images up for auction at the Plymouth International hotel on September 24 to raise money for Hospice Taranaki. The idea for the fundraiser came from veteran photojournalist Rob Tucker, who has terminal cancer and is under hospice care.
Tickets are now on sale and available from the Plymouth International or online at photojournalismnz.co.nz.