First XV: Eleanor Catton (2011)

This week's image isn't just one of my favourite images, it's one - by virtue of Eleanor's own success - that has been reused & reprinted far more than anything else in my career to date.

Of course, it's impossible to know the actual number of copies of this image; but I've seen estimates that the book sold 560,000 copies (with one copy of the image in the back of each of those); plus, the image appeared in countless media around the globe when she made the long list, then the short list, and then won the Man Booker Prize in 2013 - so I can scarcely guess the number of printed copies of all of those newspapers!

PhotographyRobert CattoAugust 14, 2017First XV, Photography, Wellington, New Zealand, Eleanor Catton, Portrait, AuthorComment

Lost & Found #33: Arts Foundation of New Zealand Laureate Portraits, 2004

In 2004, I was asked by the Arts Foundation of New Zealand to make a series of portraits of their Laureate award winners for the year - a disparate group of people from around the country, who had been nominated quite without their knowledge to receive this new award. They got a phone call out of the blue one day to say they'd won, there was no application process or requirement to produce work and report back - they'd simply been chosen because of their contribution to the country's culture.