New Zealand Fine Art Photography: Hawke's Bay Photographer Richard Wood at Art in the Park 2026
I have been invited to exhibit at Art in the Park 2026 at Eden Park in Auckland, alongside 150 of New Zealand's contemporary artists. It runs from 12 to 15 November, and I am genuinely proud to be there representing photography as an artform.
That last part matters to me. Photography still gets treated as the poor cousin at art shows sometimes, the thing you do when you cannot paint. Anyone who has spent hours building a single still life, or waited for light that never came, knows better. Being included in a show of this scale, on a stage like Eden Park, feels like a decent argument for the medium.
I will be showing mainly new work from my New Zealand Nostalgia collection.
What the collection is about
New Zealand Nostalgia started as an exploration of memory. How it softens, folds, and colours the things we carry with us. The images sit in the space between clarity and blur, shot across both digital and film formats depending on what each piece needed.
Some of it is quiet. Mary Lou, shot on Kodak Portra 100 medium format film, is a worn doll among fallen blossoms, a small meditation on time passing. There is a black and white version of her on ILFORD FP4 that goes darker and more contemplative again.
Some of it is playful. Two Pints Please takes the humble Kiwi milk token, once slipped into a glass bottle on the doorstep, and turns it into something soft and a bit cheeky. The main NZ Nostalgia composite pulls together well over fifty Kiwi symbols, from the mince and cheese pie to pōhutukawa in summer, into one richly detailed still life that feels like home.
And some of it is about looking very closely. Kowhai Reverie is five images stitched into a super resolution macro of a single kowhai flower, detailed enough that you can see a fruit fly resting near the top that nobody would notice in passing. Nocturnal Descent is a single ruru feather shot at 180MP, every barb and fibre rendered before it falls away into blur.
Getting ready
There is a fair bit between now and November. New work to finish, including a few pieces still sitting in the conceptual pile. Printing and framing decisions, which matter more than people think for photographic art. Then the logistics of getting it all from Hawke's Bay to Eden Park in one piece.
I will share more as it comes together, including some of the work in progress that has not been seen yet.
Come and say hello
If you are heading to Auckland in November, come and find me at Eden Park. One of the best things about Art in the Park, going by what people say about previous years, is that you can actually talk to the artists about the work. I am always happy to do that.
Tickets and details are at artinthepark.co.nz.
In the meantime, I am still shooting commercially across Hawke's Bay, so if you need a Hawke's Bay photographer for headshots, commercial work, food and wine, or portraits in Napier, Hastings, Havelock North or anywhere in the wider region, get in touch.
