Images that haunt you!

Sometimes old photographs come back to haunt you. Of all the thousands you've shot some just seem to stick in your memory. Usually they've been fairly important in your life in the first place. I had the luck to spend a year or two working as a staff photographer on the New Zealand Herald in the late 1970's. It was a wonderful time to work in photography and I was lucky enough to be thrown a few assignments that just suited me down to the ground. Some I recall well, others are lost in the mists of time. I have no idea why I was sent to photograph this beautiful Maori woman near Ngaruawahia south of Auckland but even then I knew I had something special....beauty is not necessarily youth!

t1972 Auckland airport. What makes this picture so important apart from the subject? I guess for me it is typical of the news pictures from those days. Shot with Ilford FP4 the quality was and is extraordinary. Mick is in his youth and there is a packet of "tallyho's" sticking out of his trouser pockets. It's not great art but it's great nostalgia. The seventies were wonderful, hopeful times for those who lived them. We all thought we might just change the world. Some of us still do!

Sydney 34 years later. Mick is still wowing the crowds and I'm still shooting News Pictures. This will be my last stand though. I'm happy for Mick to go on as long as he likes but I was ready to get out of that business. Strange affair media these days. Much changed from my youth.

Mick Jagger vocalist with the British Rock group the Rolling Stones is elated as he performs before 56,000 people at Stadium Australia in Sydney 11 April 2006. The Rolling Stones will go on to play a one concert tour in Melbourne, Auckland and Wellington before touring Europe later in the year.

Sorry.....I had to include Keith here....I never got to shoot Keith in the old days!

Another important shot for me personally. Early 1980's at Redfern. I loved the hope and love expressed in this little girl's face. I really hope her life reflects the face she showed that day on a swing with her father.