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.
Stuff photographer Rob Kitchin at Parliament. Photo: VNP / Johnny Blades
‘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.”
Rob Kitchin takes a photo of National MP Scott Simpson. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
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.”
Mark Mitchell Photo: Johnny Blades
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.
“I remember it particularly well because they're not particularly stable tractors and he was going on an angle and at one point I was down the steps from him and I thought ‘I'm getting out of here’, but not before I took that frame where the Head of Security at the time was trying to stop him going all the way up. There was no safety frame on that tractor. It could have turned tragic,” Mitchell recalls.
“It’s one of these places where you expect the unexpected. And just as you think it’s going to be a quiet day, something will happen out of the blue and you’re scrambling to make a press conference or chasing some minister who has disgraced himself or herself. You just never know what’s going to happen.”
Mitchell has been working as a photographer at Parliament for about 25 years, and says the place has changed a great deal in that time.
“The first year I was here I remember going with John Armstrong, our political editor at the time, to interview [former Prime Minister] Jim Bolger up on the 9th floor and I think the interview was at 5, and at 6 o’clock all of a sudden he leaps to his feet and we go to a room next door and watch the news on both main channels, drinking whiskies - and pretty solid whiskies at that. So that sort of thing doesn't happen these days,” he says.
National MP Shane Ardern is ordered to stop by security head Andrew Standish while attempting to drive a tractor up Parliament Steps during the farmers so called anti-fart protest, to demonstrate their opposition to the government's proposed tax to limit methane emissions, Wellington, September 4, 2003. Photo: Mark Mitchell
“I think the biggest change from my point of view in the time I've been here is the intensity of the media scrutiny, now it’s definitely a lot higher. There's a lot more cameras, so there's a lot more competition for positions in all the media scrums. The corridors haven't got any wider but the number of cameras has multiplied.
“So you’ve got to have your wits about you, and learn to sometimes step back a bit and keep an eye out for something that maybe you haven't noticed.”
Photographers who covered the occupation of 2022 remember it as a time when they were very much in the firing line.
"We were getting a lot of flak from protestors, they didn't trust the media. It turned into 'let's fight the media'," said Kitchin, who has been in the photography game for decades but started his work at Parliament after the last election. Politics in the 53rd Parliament has been pretty fraught.
Ripped Hole by Rob Kitchin Photo: Robert Kitchin
“I think one of the more chaotic times here would have been when Judith Collins was ousted for Chris Luxon, and the whole thing probably happened over about a week, maybe two weeks. But just every day there was something happening and we were running around, staking places out. I've got a picture of journalists mid-flight running after a car out the front. And it just shows you the literal chaos of that moment. They had to get the comments, they had to get the story," he says.
Kitchin's selection of photos in the exhibition is not confined to Parliament. He regularly roams the streets of Wellington, scoping out angles of daily life to capture. It can provide a break from the intense Parliament fray.
What happens in Parliament can appear theatrical, Kitchen says, "but you know there's actually deeper things that are going on, policies and bills and things like that. Important things are at stake and decisions are being made that are very important to the people. You’ve just got to treat it with respect, I think."
Rob Kitchin taking photos of Labour MP Stuart Nash on Parliament's 'Tiles'. Photo: VNP / Phil Smith
The exhibition runs until 8 October at Te Papakura Exhibition Space in Parliament's Executive Wing, the Beehive. The space is open to the public Tuesday to Sunday every week, from 10am to 4pm, and is wheelchair accessible.
