Bird-lover and photographer Tamzin Henderson is taking down gender stereotypes in the fishing industry - on land and sea.
With her sister Lana Wilson, Tamzin runs a boat chandlery and fishing supply shop in Blenheim, the only female-run store of its kind in New Zealand.
“I’ve never thought it was detrimental to be female until we took over this shop,” Tamzin tells Kathryn Ryan.
“We were raised fishing and camping and we did our dive certificates, and we did all of this stuff as kids and then at ASB, where I worked, there was never a gender gap... I got to this fishing shop and people would look past you and say 'I’ll speak to the man, thanks' ... it’s phenomenal.”
Customers have since come around, she says, and a lot of them are now good friends.
“It’s taken winning over the customers one by one and then other customers witnessing that to be able to make some headway.”
Tamzin and Lana also lead fishing tours, specialising in trips for women.
“When women are taught by men for some of these things it tends to get quite heated.”
Tamzin’s personal love for the ocean runs deep - in her spare time, she photographs New Zealand's sea birds.
Her photography has taken her to Antarctica, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the Falklands and a bit closer to home, the Chatham Islands.
Photo: Tamzin Henderson
While out photographing albatross on the Cook Strait, Tamzin noticed a Sealord vessel or rather noticed birds hanging around the vessel.
“I thought, these guys get to spend all day with the birds that I’m paying to go and visit so I contacted Sealord and asked if they’d let me come out.”
At first, her email went unanswered.
The fishing company were perhaps a bit nervous and sceptical of the request, Tamzin says, but she cleared up her intentions in a face-to-face meeting with their communications manager.
“It’s nice to see different birds or birds in locations where you haven’t seen them before. As a photographer, you’re always looking for something interesting and that might be birds interacting with each other, it might be feeding, landing on the water and things like that. All of that was what I'd be able to see on the Sealord vessel.”
Tamzin saw a huge range of birds out on the vessel, coming from all areas to feed behind the fishing boat.
“There was a really old Southern Royal Albatross who was almost white, so he was probably into his 50s, I would have thought."
After interacting with fishers at her shop, Tamzin says she slotted in relatively easy onboard the fishing vessel. In fact, she’s been back on board a few times since.
“I knew I could have a chat to the boys and it would be fine.”
Photo: Tamzin Henderson
On another trip, Tamzin sailed to the Falklands and South Georgia with the British-Norwegian shipping company Argos Froyanes.
“That one, again, I was being a little bit cheeky.
"It’s an incredible part of the world...my first time ever seeing icebergs.”
The bird Tamzin wanted to photograph that year was a snow petrel – something she was able to tick off the list in January, thanks to that trip.
Argos Froyanes covered Tamzin's travel costs to the Falklands but she says she doesn’t have an agenda when approaching commercial fishing companies.
“It’s not a case of being pro or anti-commercial fishing, I think it’s a view of their world through different eyes. There’s not a lot of female photographers doing this sort of thing, either.
“Anyone who consumes animals has a responsibility to understand where they come from and what contribution that might have to either a species’ decline... I think it’s a matter of choosing what we’re comfortable with, it’s understanding where that food is going or who it’s feeding or what it’s been used for or how it’s being caught, what wastage is involved, how the crew are treated.”
