A Q&A on capturing the constant beauty of Aotearoa and abroad, while honouring the craft of analogue photography and film making.

Photographers whose work moves seamlessly between digital precision and analogue depth, Si and Claire, now based on Banks Peninsula, share a life that is a blend of global assignments, kodak film rolls, family rhythms and time outdoors — a balance that feels intentional rather than accidental.

Kate — Si, you’ve been called the ‘Chuck Norris of Wedding Photography and you were recently invited to speak in Stockholm, Sweden on your craft. What are the different demands on you when you’re shooting people versus a place?

Si — I’ve always been very focused on human stories - I mean, especially the ‘people in love’ stories - the dignity and ‘heroism’ of the human experience, the one-off-ness and yet mundane repetitiveness of it all, and so I think I see places through the lens of the human stories that accompany it. The wildness of a remote place is amplified so much when you introduce a human story to it. It gives it scale, sometimes seeing how much or how little a person has impacted a landscape gives a sense of story and partnership and stewardship, or failure and realisation and abandonment, all of those elements.

Kate — I’ve had the good fortune of working with a lot of great photographers since starting Davaar. It’s changed the way I see things. You both look at the world through a lens every day. Has photography changed the way you see our environment — the way you notice light, people, weather, detail?

Si — Oh without a doubt. I’ve been shooting full-time for nearly twenty years world-wide and it becomes a very innate, almost experiential way of navigating the world according to the light. Quite literally just paying attention to the ways the light falls. But man, it’s the solar system working its magic — it’s actually so wild. Here we are, spinning around on this rock called earth, and the light takes mere minutes to reach us — it gets spat out of this star that is lightyears away and only moments later, it’s making a shadow on your hand, or streaming through the autumn leaves of a New York city park, or showing up as the last of a sunset flitting through the window of a high country woolshed… literal starlight working wonders, I mean, how can you not want to pay attention to that. Then put a story in its way - a couple of lovers having a once-in-a-lifetime experience together before the birth of their child, a grandma getting veggies out of her garden for the last time before she sells the house, a huge mob of sheep coming in off the backcountry, and you’ve got starlight colliding with our very human story and it’s breathtaking. And it’s also just deliciously normal. It happens every day. Don’t even get me started on the autumn light in Stockholm, and late summer twilights in the far north of New Zealand, and hard winter shadows on New York streets. A very dear friend of mine always says, ‘We don’t get paid to take photographs, we get paid to pay attention…’ which probably would’ve been a much better, shorter answer to be honest!

Claire – It has in the way I will notice corners of a place, off-piste things, or moments in the day that grab my attention or catch me off guard in the way I am drawn to them. I wasn’t always looking before, but now I am and once you start looking you can’t look away. The biggest change of seeing is always in myself, growing and learning as a human, which evolves the way I see and relate to the world and others. This all flows on to and comes out in my work and the way I will move through the world and interact with it.

Kate — When you’re working internationally, how does your eye adapt? Do you feel like you’re documenting a place, or interpreting it through your own sense of home?

Si — I think the light and people and stories in a new place are always much easier to document. You get off the plane/boat/train somewhere and it’s fresh and new you’re suddenly really awake to it. The way the light falls, the way people move, hearing new sounds and languages — even smelling different things. I must say, what I find remarkable is how quickly the extraordinary new thing becomes ordinary and normal. It’s very tempting when you arrive in a new place after travelling for a couple of days, jet lagged, tired, hungry, ready for bed, and the sun will be setting over, say, a small Italian town as everything’s bustling and it’s mid-summer, and you’ve just come from mid-winter in Banks Peninsula (which is pretty farking magic too) and everything looks insane and the light’s crazy different, the people are magic and you think, ‘I’m just gonna hit the hay and I’ll get up in the morning and breathe all this magic in and shoot 20 rolls of film and revel in it…’ And in the morning the magic’s gone. It’s become normal. Just like that. You fly from Christchurch to Auckland to New York to Buffalo, you hire a car and drive to the Finger Lakes, it’s midnight and you’re in the middle of nowhere trying to find your AirBnB and out of the misty forest road ahead comes a fully lit up old gas station with neon signs and all the small town America trimmings and a gas pump light blinking on and off and a young guy doing the night shift standing in the forecourt holding a broom staring you down like an Alec Soth/Yorgos Lanthimos masterpiece, and everything in you says ‘I haven’t got time for this’…I’ve learned to just stop the car, get out, take the photo, embarrass myself, whatever because tomorrow it’ll all look normal. So, yeah, I think you see things as new because you can’t help but bring your own sense of what you know from home with you.

Claire – Some of the times I have felt most at home, have been when I have been the absolute farthest from it. Standing in the High Atlas, Morocco, with a Rolleicord slung across my shoulder, a pocketful of fresh dates and belly full of mint tea. That’s when everything has felt the most beautiful too. Perhaps because we’re not all the things that are around us. We are just seeing, for the first time. Not necessarily adapting, but interpreting it without all the nuances of home.

Kate — How do you adapt your visual language to different cultures and landscapes without losing your own signature? Or is it about letting yourself go entirely?

Claire – I’ve often felt like it’s a patchwork quilt, shooting for things that all have different needs. It’s busy and bright and certainly not boring, but sometimes I’ve found I’ve gotten so far from who and what I’m about that it can feel a bit mandatory, less creative. This next era is about sinking into the essence of what we’re all about and inviting others into that — an era of timelessness and calm.

Si — Stories are how humans share experience. It’s how we invite people into our world, or how we willingly step into someone else’s world. The way we’ve learned to tell stories is wildly different depending on where and how you’ve grown up. That personal visual signature - how you see light and how you value people - is something you carry with you constantly and it shows up in your storytelling and how you experience the world. You can obviously shape it though, more easily than most people think. The old ‘If you don’t like your output, change your input’ trope is incredibly true. Creative work only happens when you feed yourself with things that inspire you. It should be an exchange.

Kate — Your work feels intentional rather than rushed. In an industry that can be high-pressure and fast, how do you protect that slower, thoughtful tone in what you produce?

Claire — My natural rhythm is probably to move through the world in a slower, thoughtful tone. So that translates, but protecting that way of being doesn’t work too well in an effort to get all the things done that need to be done. The intention is there in life and in work, to lean into the beauty and I think that’s enough for it to be noticed throughout. It’s wonderful to have a life and practice that’s unedited and beautiful in all its messiness.

Si — Oh man, ‘high pressure and fast’ sums up the entire digital world. There’s no doubt we’ve increasingly placed value on immediacy over intention as these last twenty or so years of digital and device dominance have taken hold. [In photography] Motion blur and grain and imperfect angles, less-crafted moments and more genuine things that reveal personality feel magical, wild and messy and a bit of ‘roll the dice’ for good measure! All of that actually takes more time being present, more time crafting good taste, more time not just thinking about the things you like but why you like them and what is it that makes you say a thing is finished. Everywhere you look now it’s a pivot back to analog experiences, and it’s a rejection of fast, perfect, high exposure, and loud volume. I’m always really interested in how luxury brands are pivoting at the front edge of culture and the current swing away from AI and tech, towards quieter, more private, more carefully intentioned executions is really exciting. Maybe the luxury of the future is less — look at less, be around less people, be in fewer places, but in everything you do, and everyone you do it with, be fully present.

Kate — There’s a beautiful return to analogue in your practice, which I love — Kodak film, Super 8, grain, softness. Is the fascination with analogue about aesthetic, discipline, nostalgia? What leads you to load a roll of film versus switching on a digital camera?

Si — Oh yeah analog practices and processes, there’s a lot to unpack in that. Indulge me for a quick minute. If we whip back to the second half of the 20th Century we see this incredible boom of imagery in popular culture - magazines with colour photos (Nat Geo and Life, for example), movies in colour, regular people shooting 35mm film in colour, polaroids in colour, TV booming, and this incredible era of imagery forming and responding to culture and that imagery really becoming the building blocks of how we see ourselves. All shot on film, obviously, and so that culture was formed around some of the constraints that come with shooting on film - the big ones being scarcity, delayed gratification, and the need for being able to visualize an image before it’s even a real thing. And it’s actually pretty hard to separate the art and culture of that era from the medium that it was produced on. So much so that we find ourselves back in an analog golden age here a full two decades after the digital revolution where film-makers and still photographers are still reliant on, not just some wonderful film stocks that get a certain result, but also the magic of those key analog practices of constraint, that leads to getting a certain result. And you can find that same mantra of constraint in all sorts of art from that golden era. In music, in cinema, in magazines, on TV. The constraint of using an analog medium means you have less, and so you have to engage more. Lots of people just see the film you’re putting in the camera and assume the magic in that little canister must be off the chart, and I mean, yeah Kodak make some glorious stuff for catching starlight, no doubt. But the real magic is the process of constraint that it forces you to adapt to get the most out of it.

Claire – Film feels like coming home. Like an old friend. We’re returning to it but I think we never really left.

Kate — Analogue demands patience and precision. In a world that wants instant turnaround, why is that constraint still worth it to you?

Si — Despite the great Mies (Van Der Rohe, the OG rockstar architect of post-war America cityscapes) coining the ‘less is more’ vibe back in the early 50’s it still seems to surprise every new generation of artists and designers and architects that yes, the path of abundance and speed is actually just really messy and annoying. For every generation, there’s some kind of revolution in manufacturing or thinking which promises everything for less money and less waiting. We always seem to end up rolling back the clock and putting a premium on things that’re crafted with care, precision, and a huge amount of thoughtfulness. Which makes me think of my fav wool jersey that’s currently getting me through this chilly AF Banks Peninsula Autumn — just saying.

Claire – When shooting analogue, I’m looking, seeing, composing, making it worth it. You simply cannot beat it. It’s like vinyl vs itunes. It does take longer, but film images have evidently got a thousand times the lifespan of any digital capture. I think these are the ones we will still love and come back to year after year until forever. It feels more like legacy than content.

Kate — Cityscapes and wide open landscapes. How different is your approach when there’s concrete instead of coastline?

Si — I do love a hard shadow line, oh my god yes. Listen, the quality of the light on these fine Canterbury plains is insane, and loads of it is the atmospheric disturbance that gives you this wonderful diffusion, as well as the plains meeting the sea, and the feathering of light you get from ridge lines and headlands throwing soft shadow lines, all that jazz. But in the same way the natural space give you all of those beautiful light quirks, urban spaces give you a different menu of glorious stuff - hard shadow lines, un-dusty air that gives you sharp definition, grey concrete bounce everywhere, glorious corners, the delicious surprise of glass bouncing light and giving you these surprise puddles of super intense light in weird places that change almost daily as the seasons kick on. Also, the light moving through an urban environment gives you a good reminder of how fast the earth’s spinning, those shadows move SO fast. And then you add the wild human element of putting so many lives together in one place and you have a very different energy. Both are glorious if you pay attention and immerse yourself in it all.

Claire – I can’t say I shoot much in the city. I’m either in nature, in corners of a home, or chasing one wild daughter down a grassy path to eat plums high up in a tree-hut. But if I was to find myself in concrete, I’m looking for light, corners and colour. If we’re on the coast I’m feeling everything and bringing in that sense of spaciousness. Can we also talk about a quiet meadow and spring creek and soft moss? Those are incredible places too.

Kate — High-end commercial work can be fast, demanding and tightly structured. How do you hold onto your creative edge when timelines are compressed?

Claire — Since becoming a mum I miss the feeling of being productive and getting through the workload immensely, as my ability to produce at the same capacity is alarmingly low. Simply because I’ve got my hands full of toy cars, half eaten crackers and I’m trying to rescue the freshly pulled piece of rosemary hedge Si has been cultivating for months from someone’s tightly clutched fingers. Deadlines are annoying, but they do get things done.

Si — Sometimes we think creativity’s in the spontaneous moment and that it doesn’t love a deadline, but in my experience constraint is the thing that gives it power. Constraint and good preparation. Oh, and great collaborations…

Kate — Claire, many of the brands you work with lean toward craftsmanship, nature and slower living. Is that a deliberate niche you’ve carved out — or a reflection of who you are?

Claire — That’s deliberately accidental. I value those things in life, so it makes sense it’s happened that way. Who doesn’t love the smell of cut wood in the workshop, the taste of berries straight from the vine, a hundred year old garden, a Japanese mug steaming with hot coffee on a crispy morning, a jersey straight off a high country farm, tied with the fleece of the owners daughters favourite hand reared ewe? Sometimes things just fit and it’s natural, and everyone involved feels that.

Kate — Si, music has been part of your life for a long time. I understand you enjoy listening to a bit of a jazz on the turntable. Does your love of vinyl mirror your love of film — that tactile, slower process?

Si — It’s exactly the same thing. If you compare getting the soundtrack of your living days from the algorithm of a streaming service that can give you all the music in the world, vs a limited amount of music in a record collection that you’ve hunted out from around the world and hauled home in your suitcase, bought some of them at shows, others from flipping through bins in weird old record stores in small towns, they mean something. When you choose a vinyl album looking at the artwork and reminiscing. Then dropping the needle and listening to a whole side, and getting up 15 mins later to flip it… I mean. Hard yes. Interestingly, our two-year old, Rosa, has zero interest in music out of the phone or the laptop, but she can spin records all day long. She picks based on cover art — a reminder of how visual music can be. She’s got mad 80’s classic taste as it turns out - Springsteen, The Cars, A-ha, Lionel Richie, all great art and great tunes.

Kate — You two have recently moved from Auckland and made Banks Peninsula home. Has the move altered what you feel drawn to photograph?

Claire – The light here is wild. I could devote a whole series just to the light and seasons here. It has pulled me away from familiar landscapes and nudged me towards a different aesthetic. I’m very much still settling in and finding it all. It’s hard to ignore mother nature here as everything is a lot more volatile and loud, and then there’s the gentle warms days too. We’re surrounded by it all in a way that just doesn’t happen in the big city.

Si — I’ve spent a lot of time travelling to the northern hemisphere to shoot most winters, and so I’ve missed out on seeing the seasons and the winter light in Aotearoa for over a decade, but this last winter I didn’t go anywhere, we just hunkered down with our wee girl by the fire and literally enjoyed the winter light streaming in to the house. Honestly, it was insane. The difference in the quality and nature of the light between here and Auckland is wild. We get a crazy light show most mornings and evenings (we live in a valley sandwiched between two ridges), we get some wild weather thrown in with it all, and it definitely feels like we’re way more aware of the light and the natural environment here than in that big ole city.

Kate — We’re a gardening family and I hear you’ve inherited a garden along with your new home. What has been the greatest discoveries in this heritage garden of yours?

Claire – This place comes with an acre of gardens, some of it a vegetable garden and the other half is full of trees and bush tracks. We’ve discovered a secret asparagus patch, potatoes sprouting absolutely everywhere, and a resident Korimako. The feijoa tree feeds half of Banks Peninsula. Do you know anyone that would like a box or ten of quince?

Si — How long have you got? The learning curve has been huge, but so great. The thing with a big established garden and huge trees is that it’s a living, breathing, changing juggernaut of a thing rolling on, with or without you. You want to sit back and try and get your head around it all - old heritage fruit trees, huge vege garden, a dozen or so big kowhai alongside wattles and eucalypts and olive trees - but it also needs you to be hands on. So, it’s been an interesting path of letting it teach us, while still trying to guide it on the road that it’s been put on by a handful of previous owners. The birdlife though, the korimako, sheeesh. Oh man, we did just have a fruit tree disaster though, well, a disaster for us, not the tree. We’ve got heaps of great fruit trees, apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, loads of different plums, figs, a bangin’ feijoa tree, and we thought we were across it all. But — there was a nectarine tree that we’d completely missed! It was tucked in behind a shed. I found it when there were only a handful of nectarines left on it, and they were absolutely insane, white-flesh nectarines, perfectly ripe and juicy. Five plump little darlings that we got to enjoy. Disappointingly, around the base of the tree were around seventy rotten ones that had fallen off bit by bit without us knowing. OMFG, we missed out on seventy plus magical nectarines. Anyways, there’s always next year!!

Kate — You’re raising a beautiful daughter together while running your own creative businesses. How do you navigate the balance between work and home?

Claire — We’ve descended into chaos. Which I have now learnt is entirely normal. We’re working on our new way of being as a family and finding new rhythms and ways of doing things. There’s days where it’s absolute magic and days where its hard AF.

Si — There is no balance. It’s a madhouse. But we’re learning to embrace the chaos and surf it all rather than be frustrated. (Send tips please and thank you!) I mean, we rolled the dice and moved here, away from friends and family and familiar work patterns, to a place we don’t know, because we stumbled across a magic spot where we thought we could give Rosa a beautiful life, and we thought we owed it to her and to ourselves to have a crack. Plenty of people thought we were crazy, but a handful of wonderful dear friends, like a mate, Morv — who had moved to Raglan — were absolute cheerleaders for us to do it. We wanted to forge a path that was somewhere between giving our daughter Rosa a wonderful childhood, finding fresh creative juice in a new place, and building a wild home, so we definitely signed up for a vibe right from the start. It can be tough though. Huge shout-out to all the kinds of parents everywhere who are juggling all the unique madness of it all.

Kate — Fly fishing takes you into some of Aotearoa’s most remote places. Do those trips feed directly back into your visual work? And dare I ask, where’s your favourite fly fishing spot? Or maybe second favourite — as I can’t really ask you to divulge your favourite!

Si — Moving water is magic AF. It really is. Whether it’s watching waves roll in at a beach, or looking over the side of a bridge down into rapids, or standing in front of a waterfall. Give me a day stalking infuriating fish walking up a backcountry river, alive to the world and observing the magic of light on water and these wild creatures that move in it effortlessly and I’m a happy man. And then my own brilliant or terrible casting, depending on so many factors. It does feel like you’re doing a beautiful thing and you’re a part of it all. There are so many rivers and streams that run through my head when I’m day-dreaming about fishing. The Makarora Delta is a fav, obvs the headwaters of the Oreti and one near you guys, the upper Mataura at Athol is magic (some dear friends live at Brightwater Road on the river bank. I need to get back there), the Sabine in Nelson Lakes is magic, the Maruis at Shenandoah is underrated AF, but I’d say the river that keeps me awake at night is a particular stretch of the understandably glorious Tongariro on the Central Plateau. Dear lord what a piece of water, famous for good reason… and what mighty fish.

Si Moore @sasmoore
All Kodak Film @baylymoore
baylymoore.com

Claire Mossong @clairemossong
Things on Film @kidanimal.co