Meet the People - 26

Maree Henry, Portico. Lyttelton. Sept. 2008. Ajr

Another in the Series Meet the People – Ordinary and Extraordinary New Zealanders Doing Interesting Things – Photographer Maree Henry has happily settled into life in Lyttelton. What’s more, a year ago she opened a shop with business partner Dave Watchorn, featuring all her favourite things. PORTICO is in Lyttelton’s main street in what was once an old fruit and vegetable store. The cute century-old building is now home to a wide range of (mostly) New Zealand-made goodies – everything from exquisitely made baby and children’s clothes to cushions, jewellery and little luxuries. But Maree, who spent fifteen years working in Christchurch as a photographic printer, still keeps her camera close and unlike most of us, she’s resisted digital technology. “I use it – I have a small digital and I enjoy the editing efficiency it offers but I don’t use it for my artwork.” That artwork is a range of images scanned onto billboard canvases and old truck tarpaulins – an appropriate medium given that many of the images of toys (trucks) that have been scaled up to a huge size. “I like playing with the scale and detail of things and by working with negative rather than digital I get a rendition I’m much happier with.” Maree has a range of her photographic works at the new Christchurch design store F3 which I featured here a few weeks back. To see others in this series, click on Meet the People in the label line below this post.