Niwa scientists become ph
A staff photo competition takes on new meaning when your workplace is nature’s backyard and your subjects are Kiwi creatures. By Gordana Rodden.
Being surrounded by animals comes with the territory for Niwa marine ecologist and scientific diver Richie Hughes. The ocean off Northland’s Tutukaka coast is Hughes’ office; the creatures that live above and within the water his colleagues. By turning his love of diving into a career he has been able to ‘‘mix business with pleasure’’.
A desire to share the beauty of the underwater life he was studying saw him pick up photography.
‘‘It kind of came as a secondary thing to diving… you’ve got to learn all of the basics top-side first, before you can take pictures underwater.’’
While marine life is Hughes’ primary subject matter, it was a picture of a mollymawk, a small species of albatross, which he titled
Staring Into the
Soul, that he chose to enter into Niwa’s annual staff photo competition, which received more than
400 entries. The bird stares right at the viewer with a furrowed brow, mid air.
‘‘I noticed a few of the birds cruising along and staring at us, so I got out a long lens and used a fast shutter speed.’’
The trick to snapping a photo so piercing when shooting wildlife is persistence, he says.
‘‘I probably took a couple of thousand photos before I came out with this one.’’
He says the advancing photographic technology available now, in cameras like the GoPro, is an important tool for scientific diving research.
Based in Ngunguru, Hughes’ normal day sees him at work by 6.30am to organise diving gear and sampling equipment, then onboard by 8.30am. For a photography expedition he would be at the boat ramp by dawn.
The job affords him a ‘‘good lifestyle’’. No one day is the same, and there is always something different to photograph.
‘‘I probably took a couple of thousand photos before I came out with this one.’’ Richie Hughes