If there's one group who we don't hear enough about, it's the photographers who cover Parliament. A new exhibition is casting light on five of these practitioners. We talk to two of them.
In terms of the media people who cover Parliament, there's more than enough focus on the reporters and broadcasters that inhabit the Press Gallery.
If there's one group who we don't hear enough about, it's the photographers and visual journalists. That's why the current exhibition at Parliament's Te Papakura Exhibition Space is refreshing and reminds us that the visuals are often an important part of the story of what goes on here.
'Beyond the Tiles: A Press Gallery Photographic Exhibition' features the work of five photographers: Robert Kitchin from Stuff, Mark Mitchell from NZ Herald and NZME, RNZ's Angus Dreaver and Sam Rillstone, plus The House's Phil Smith.
The work in the exhibition is not strictly about Parliament, but for most of this group, catering to the voracious media appetite for news, images and footage from Parliament means busy days during sitting weeks.
"It's full on. It's very hard to try and come up with something new because you're in one building," Kitchin says, noting there are only certain parts of Parliament where photography is allowed.
"You have to try and use those same areas and make them visually appealing, multiple times, over and over again."
Sitting days follow a set routine within which are established times for media opportunities, such as the bridge run or caucus runs in the corridors of the main Parliament building. For photographers like Kitchin, the job is about riding the energy and keeping an eye out for those random moments which can bring a political story to life.
"The random element is the human being in the photo so you're looking for any type of emotion, any type of body language, anything that sort of would actually tell the story about how they are feeling."
Sometimes simply being there to document the random is the important thing. Luckily, Mark Mitchell was on hand with his camera twenty years ago when National MP Shane Ardern drove a tractor up Parliament's front steps during the so-called anti-fart protest by farmers against the government's proposed tax to limit methane emissions…