Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer
A superb selection of the work of one of New Zealand’s finest early photographers.
By Athol McCredie
Publication: September 2024
Pages: 244
Format: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1-99-116550-3
RRP: $70
Buy Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer:
Leslie Adkin (1888–1964) was a Levin farmer, photographer, geologist, ethnologist and explorer, a gifted amateur and renaissance man, of sorts, who used photography to document his scholarly interests, farming activities and family life. His much loved and exceptionally beautiful photographs taken between 1900 and the 1930s are one of the highlights of Te Papa’s historical photography collection.
This book of over 150 images, selected by Athol McCredie, Curator Photography at Te Papa, establishes his reputation more clearly within the development of photography in New Zealand and showcases a remarkable body of work.
McCredie’s substantial text gives rich insights into the varied elements of Adkin’s very busy life, including his love for his wife Maud, captured over the years in a range of intimate and engaging images which feel as fresh as when they were first taken.
Review highlights
Art New Zealand Magazine, reviewed by Don Abbott. “Athol McCredie has … produced an absolute pearler. …Te Papa Press has been producing valuable and rich photography books recently; this is a wonderful addition to its catalogue.”
Aoteaora New Zealand Review of Books, reviewed by Hamish Coney. “Leslie Adkin: Farmer Photographer arrives as a discovery and a revelation. … I can think of few books I’ve read in recent times with such a sense of wide-eyed wonder. This was clearly McCredie’s experience during its creation and his intent in publishing.”
PhotoForum, by Virginia Were. "A selection from Adkin’s extraordinary body of photographs – he produced more than 49 albums in his lifetime – is brought together in this substantial book with a well researched text, providing insight into Adkin’s life and the development of photography in Aotearoa in the early 1900s, by Athol McCredie, Curator of Photography at Te Papa. ... Thanks to Adkin’s almost obsessive desire to document his life and the people he loved, he left behind a rich photographic record of a full and varied life and the social and cultural currents that shaped it."
New Zealand Geographic, by Rebekah White. “Leslie Adkin wore a lot of hats: photographer, farmer, pioneering tramper, husband and father, self-taught geologist, anthropologist. But it’s his pictures that have had the broadest impact. His meticulously created photographs, showcased in a new book, are an exceptional record of daily life in the early 1900s.”
Author interviews
New Zealand Listener, Book takes: Love, landscape and legacy - the tribute to little-known NZ photography great Leslie Adkin with Athol McCredie.
Kapiti News, Athol McCredie interviewed by Grace Odlum.
RNZ Nights, interviewed by Emile Donovan.
About the author
Athol McCredie is Curator Photography at Te Papa, where he has worked since 2001. He has been involved with photography as a researcher, curator and photographer since the 1970s. His publications include Brian Brake: Lens on the world (editor, 2010), New Zealand Photography Collected (2015) and The New Photography: New Zealand’s first generation of documentary photographers (2019).
