ributes are pouring in for Ron Redfern, a photographer with a strong connection to Wairarapa who left behind an 80-year-long legacy when he died on May 28 at the age of 92. He is recognised as one of New Zealand’s “greats” for his award-winning images and pioneering work in the commercial film and digital fields, with the New Zealand Journal of Photography noting the “strong elements of pictorialism, a strong sense of composition, and mastery over black and white” in his work. Born and raised in Lower Hutt, Ron first picked up a Kodak Box Brownie camera at age 14 and developed his skills on a Leica with two 500-watt floodlights at Elite Studios one year later.
“I would stand in the street and take photos of people as they walked towards me,” he recalled of this time. “I’d give them my card, and they’d come into the studio and buy the photo.” His daughter Darlya Redfern said that in his 20s, Ron became a member of the Wellington Camera Club, where he learned about composition and which he credited for enabling his passion for and success in landscape photography.
In the early 1950s, he worked as chief photographer at the former Department of Scientific and Industrial Research [DSIR], where, after three weeks, he was commissioned to film a colour movie at White Island. Four years later, Redfern left DSIR and worked as a studio manager at Gorden H Burt’s studio, which had been established in the 1920s. He was the first in Wellington to process colour nega.