Max Oettli's Portraits of Photographers
Portraits of Photographers
Max Oettli
A special PhotoForum featured portfolio, December 2022
Max Oettli, founding president of PhotoForum Inc., has made many informal portraits of photographers over the years. Here he offers a selection, along with some commentary in his own unique style.
I was never overly interested in photographers, too self-centred me, and sure as hell not to be drawn into a long discussion about lenses or the best dilution for Rodinal (1:30 20C ref time 10 mins) though quite happy to talk about our spiritual fathers the likes of Stieglitz, Weston, Moholy-Nagy or Eugene Smith. My own fetish throughout my career has been Cartier-Bresson. How clever to be the son of an industrial filature, if you follow my thread and have all the freedom you can imagine. I have a bobbin of black thread in a drawer somewhere..
Max Oettli, Gary Blackman, Brett McDowell Gallery, Dunedin, 2012
So looking at ancestry I suppose we could start with Gary Blackman. He left us recently, leaving a major gap for his beloved wife and family and also in the lively cultural scene of Dunedin. He was a a fine, discerning photographer and writer well schooled in the history and culture of photography. Rest in Peace, Gary.
Max Oettli, R.D. (Tom) Hutchins, Elam School of Fine Arts, 1972
I was privileged to be hauled out of the beer sodden depraved gutter of the Kiwi pub where I was dispensing booze (as becomes an English Graduate) in 1970 by Tom Hutchins. I was supposed to teach photography, but I learned a hell of a lot, not only about visual art (Elam was a rich and exciting place then) but through Tom also about politics from a distinctly leftie point of view. I was probably unworthy of him at some level; he was a good friend.
Max Oettli, R.D. (Tom) Hutchins, Auckland, circa 1972.
Never mind the Bolex..Here come…
Max Oettli, John B Turner, with his portrait of Gordon Walters & Margaret Orbell, Te Papa, 2019
John B Turner is the hub of a whole renaissance of photography in Aotearoa. His relationship with me took a while to develop, he was appointed lecturer in Photography at Elam not long after I arrived. He was the would-be Guru, I was the darkroom ogre. Our occasionally awkward relationship eventually ripened into friendship. His take on photography was different from mine and I wasn’t going down the road to wasting time and film on the Zone system as taught by Ansel Adams and preached by Minor White. I was quite simply too busy out with my Nikons and Leicas, looking at the teeming life of a big restless city. But I admire his boundless energy and the endless projects he launched, including PhotoForum with Tom Hutchins.
He was a meticulous darkroom rat as well…
Max Oettli, John B Turner with students, 1974
Max Oettli, William Main with students, nd
Another useful darkroom hand, and expert on New Zealand photography history, was William Main from Wellington Tech. On the left is student Gael Newton, longtime curator of photography at the ANG in Canberra.
Max Oettli, Simon Buis, 1975
The late and lamented Simon Buis was a good friend and a photographer of boundless energy. He spent a lot of energy photographing young ladies in miniskirts, in thrall to David Bailey. (Obsessively a ladies’ man, he was even lusting after my beloved Simone before we consecrated our union in 1975 and fled the country). Here we are on the way to the opening of “The Active Eye”
Max Oettli, Ans Westra at a PhotoForum workshop, circa 1974
Ans Westra was another person I met and worked with at that time. She came to a summer school in the young and sexy phase of her life and I’ve had the privilege of running into her at intervals ever since. Seen here at a PhotoForum workshop in 1973-4.
Her sister Yvonne Westra is not as well-known but has a mysterious body of work showing a lively and quirky imagination. In Whanganui just before the COVID lockdown 2019.
Max Oettli, Yvonne Westra, Whanganui, 2019
Max Oettli or Simone Oettli, Larence Shustak being photographed by an unidentified photographer, Anawhata, Auckland, 1973
Larence Shustak was active on the same PhotoForum/Elam workshop in 1973, and he and Margo became good friends in time. During our time in Auckland we had a number of delightful escapades which involved Larence smoking most of my meagre stash and such exploits as skinny dipping at ol’ Anawhata. He was an inspirational teacher at ol’ Cantab as a crop of very fine photographers there witness. Whose was the white bum again? Allan McDonald? Simone says it’s her photo. Dunno…
Max Oettli, Glenn Busch, nd
Glenn Busch, an assiduous photographer, founder of the Snaps Gallery, who ended up teaching at Canterbury as well, and who has left us with a number of iconic portfolios and some fine disciples in the documentary mode.
Max Oettli, Clive Stone, circa 1970
Clive Stone was in his last year at Elam when I arrived there in 1970, also meticulously working on medium format portraits. The shadow of Paul Strand and August Sander hovers over much of his work.. and Glenn’s too.
Another student who has remained active, Fiona Clark.
Max Oettli, Fiona Clark, nd
Max Oettli, Colin MacLaren, nd
Colin MacLaren, an interesting guy who was somewhere between printmaking and photography. Apparently on an island in the Waitemata somewhere now.
Max Oettli, John Miller, Auckland Art Gallery, 2004
Ran into John Miller first at Warkworth Architect’s congress in 1970, he would have been very young but we got talking a bit as we waved our gear around. Later we seem to have shared a gig as stringer West End News photographers. Simone van Delden was the photo-reporter!!
For decades he was arguably the only Māori photographer around. Nice guy to run into!
Here he is at the Binney-Kinder opening at Auckland Art Gallery 2004 showing a lady some contact sheets.
Max Oettli, Simone Van Delden (Oettli), Auckland, circa 1975
I’d spotted my beloved Simone Van Delden (Oettli) wandering down Grafton Road and nearly ploughed my old Peugeot into a power pole. A week or two later she sauntered into a photography workshop at Elam. It was love at first exposure. She was a journalist and photographer at that time. A couple of years later she was one of the editors of the classic anthology of womens’ photography “Fragments of a World”. No idea who the hairy guy is… Don’t care.
Max Oettli, Fiona Pardington, Lausanne, Switzerland, 2016
Fiona Pardington and I finally met in 2016 when she crashed at our place for a couple of nights while working on Vladimir Nabokov’s collection of butterflies at the Lausanne Natural History Museum. She brought a bottle of Single Malt in her baggage…
Max Oettli, Harvey Benge, Auckland Art Gallery, 2004
Harvey Benge I remember from the foundation year of PhotoForum. He was somewhat aloof, a photographer of a different mould from most of us. A man of supreme confidence and a daring visual imagination. Met him in Auckland on one of my visits there in ‘04, and then suddenly, tragically, he was dead. He came to an Auckland Art Gallery booze up with his lovely daughter (Zoé ?).
Max Oettli, John J. Fields, nd
I owe a great deal to John J. Fields. He invited me to take part in the pioneer publication “A Visual Dialect” and we were friends from then on, never close but mutually respectful. When I was working in the Kiwi as a barman he was a frequent guest and he was one of the partners in the Kiwi book that came out last year. The other is Gary Baigent. Of whom I don’t seem to have a photo. I was probably jealous of him, and wrote a bitchy review of his book from the height of my 20 years. Superb photos and graphics betrayed by crappy printing on early offset.
Max Oettli, Haruhiko Sameshima, Photobook/NZ, Wellington, 2018
One who always gets it right with printing and book production is Haru Sameshima, here seen at a photo book fair at Massey Wellington in 2018.
Max Oettli, Bruce Connew, Photobook/NZ, Wellington, 2018
Bruce Connew is a perfectionist when it comes to books. Also at the Wgtn book fair in 2018
Max Oettli, Geoffrey H. Short, Photobook/NZ, Wellington, 2018
…and Geoff Short the Fire Man, always elegantly hatted.
Max Oettli, Ian Macdonald, nd
Ian Macdonald came to Elam as a rather older student after a career as a deck officer in the Merchant Navy. He has remained deeply engaged in all matters concerning our natural environment ("Gift of the Sea" as Shadboldt would say in the Brian Brake book). He was also an active printer and exhibitor of photos through Real Pictures.
Max Oettli, Janet Bayly, nd
Janet Bayly, another assiduous Elam pupil has also had an exciting career as an expressive photographer and Gallery director.
Max Oettli, Peter Peryer, Dunedin, 2007
My relationship with Peter Peryer was not always easy. He came to a summer course in ‘71 or some such, and was so convinced of his own genius that it was difficult to have much to say to him, the more so as I was bitten by the same bug. I used to say I left Aotearoa in ‘76 because I didn’t want to turn into another Peter Peryer. Grossly unfair, for sure. I met him again when I came back in ‘07 and we got on pretty well. At Erika Wolf’s place in ol’ Dunedin.
Max Oettli, Doc Ross, nd
Doc Ross, well named for his Documentary work, with Liz Ross and Betty. Photographer and Book Maker.
Max Oettli, Gil Hanly, 2014
Gil Hanly was my Elam colleague Pat’s wife when I first met her, but I discovered that she was a fine photographer and a person deeply committed to political and decency issues in her own right. She was everywhere.
Max Oettli, Marti Friedlander, 1968
As was Marti Friedlander. 1968
Max Oettli, James Gilberd, Wellington, 2020
James Gilberd of the Photospace Gallery in ol’ Wellington has stuck it out for decades by having a firm belief in what he does and what he promotes. Great gallery!
Max Oettli, Julian Ward, Wellington, 2019
Ran into Julian Ward in a Cuba street (his favourite hunting ground for 3 decades) Asian restaurant. We both knew of each other’s work but had never met. He has been tirelessly helpful to Ans Westra in her old age.
Max Oettli, Michael Divine, 1968
The photographer watching life passing by. Chap is called Michael Divine, apparently, worked for AKTV2. We’re at a Vietnam war fundraising day at Mollers farm in 1968.
Max Oettli, Max Oettli, Ponsonby, Auckland, 1974
Last but not least.. me. Existential anguish and a tab of acid in Ponsonby waiting for the bath to run…1974.
Max Oettli is a Swiss / New Zealand photographer who works in a personal documentary mode. He is known within New Zealand particularly for his photographs taken in the late 1960s and early ‘70s in Auckland.
From 1970 to 1975 Oettli was technical instructor in film and photography at the University of Auckland Elam School of Fine Arts. For some of this time he was also founding president of PhotoForum Inc. He had four solo exhibitions from 1970 to 1975 (one of which was shown in eight public galleries). He was also included in the landmark The Active Eye touring exhibition that surveyed contemporary New Zealand photography.
Oettli left New Zealand with his wife Simone in 1976 to travel extensively. The couple settled in Geneva, where Oettli worked in architectural and aerial imaging while also teaching photography. In 2007 he came back to New Zealand to take up a position as lecturer in photography at Otago Polytechnic.
His work was included in the book The New Photography: New Zealand's First-Generation Contemporary Photographers, edited by Athol McRedie and published by Te papa Press, 2019.
A major survey exhibition Max Oettli: Visible Evidence, Photographs 1965–1975 was shown at Auckland Art Gallery 18 Dec 2021 — 18 Sep 2022.
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