End of the NZ landscape book
Craig Potton’s publisher no longer commissions new books of landscape photography due to a relentless slide in sales. Will Harvie reports.
Ifound it on the shelf under our coffee table. Dusty, slightly faded and long forgotten. It was a picture book of New Zealand landscapes edited by Colin Monteath and titled New Zealand: The Land at the End of the Earth.
It’s a fine book full of lovely photos by some of the country’s best-known landscape photographers – Monteath himself, Craig Potton, Peter Morath and dozens of others.
My coffee table also yielded picture books about the stone canyons of Colorado, the wilds of Patagonia and one called Jungles.
They have not sparked joy for a decade or more and probably need a clean-out – but really, who chucks out books?
Robbie Burton knows what’s happening here. He’s the publisher and managing director at Potton & Burton, the independent book publisher based in Nelson.
‘‘Thirty years ago, when our publishing house was starting out, the books that enabled us to develop
. . . were books of New Zealand landscape photography,’’ he wrote in the company’s February newsletter.
Known in the publishing trade as ‘‘pictorials’’, they took off in the 1960s as innovative printers in Asia made colour photography books affordable. ‘‘Initially it was New Zealanders who bought these books in huge numbers, enthusiastic about seeing their country reflected back to them in print,’’ Burton wrote.
‘‘By the time we started publishing books of this nature, it was the burgeoning tourist market who were buying them in large quantities, a
memento for visitors of our memorable landscapes to take back to their largely northern hemisphere homes.’’
But the genre has collapsed. About a decade ago, ‘‘we saw a steady, relentless slide in book sales in this genre, to the point where sales are so minimal, we are no longer commissioning new books of landscape photography’’, Burton wrote.
It’s sad, he said in an interview, because he enjoyed the work and their demise has taken a chunk out of his revenue. But sad, too, because the photographers who made livings out of pictorials – many of them friends – have lost their livelihoods.
Juliet Blyth noticed the declining trend too. After 20 years managing bookshops in Wellington, she’s now chief executive of Read NZ Te Pou Muramura (formerly the NZ Book Council), chair of Booksellers NZ, and a board member at the Coalition for Books.
Pictorials ‘‘served a purpose’’, she says. They told New Zealand stories with photos.
Aotearoa stories are still being told in high-production books with lots of beautiful pictures, she says, and they ‘‘better reflect the depth and diversity of our history and culture than those pictorial books possibly did’’.
‘‘We’re telling our stories better, I think. If you look at the illustrated non-fiction long list for the Ockham book awards this year, there are some beautiful books on there . . . and they are a bit more specific and more detailed.’’
‘‘Exactly right,’’ says Burton. He points to Tamatea Dusky: The remarkable story of Fiordland’s Dusky Sound, by Peta Carey, which he published. Tons of astonishing landscape photos, of course, but also ‘‘great text and narrative’’ on Ma¯ ori history in the far south and Cook’s arrival in 1773. There are ‘‘deep dives’’ into New Zealand nature conservation, which began in Dusky 120 years ago, and the groundbreaking predator control and species conservation that started there 50 years ago.
Tamatea didn’t make the Ockham long list, but then six of the 10 illustrated non-fiction books on the list were published by either the Auckland University Press or Massey University Press.
Along with Te Papa Press and Bridget Williams Books, the university presses have dominated the Ockham illustrated non-fiction category for the past decade. Almost by definition, they aren’t populist books.
Blyth and Burton both know what collapsed landscape book publishing – technology.
‘‘The main reason,’’ wrote Burton, ‘‘is the rapid increase in the quality of digital camera technology, now carried as a phone in most people’s pockets, but then able to be shared widely on social media platforms.
‘‘This unfortunately bypasses the need for a printed book, or for other photographers to capture your experience.’’ Throw in some video, maybe a soundtrack, and the experience spreads fast.
But landscape photography is more popular than ever, says Moira Blincoe, president of the Photographic Society. It has about 1200 individuals and 67 camera clubs as members, for a total of about 4000 affiliated photographers, she says.
Their photographic interests are wide – flowers, food, steampunk – but outdoor scenery is a mainstay of the society’s annual book, New Zealand Camera. It’s been through various formats since 1967 and is currently a competitively judged hard-cover, fullcolour, coffee table book.
The society’s annual convention is being held in Christchurch this year, and along with workshops and exhibitions, members can go on field trips to Canterbury beauty spots Akaroa or Arthur’s Pass.
As for my coffee table collection, I’ve put aside some time this weekend to wipe away the dust and flip again through their pages. Maybe next year I’ll finally get to Patagonia.
Aotearoa stories are still being told in highproduction books with lots of beautiful pictures, and they ‘‘better reflect the depth and diversity of our history and culture than those pictorial books possibly did’’. Juliet Blyth (pictured left) Chief executive of Read NZ Te Pou Muramura, chair of Booksellers NZ, and a board member at the Coalition for Books