A veteran Tauranga photographer – who has made an outstanding contribution to documenting the city’s past through his career behind the camera – has been bestowed 2024’s Tauranga Heritage Award.

When asked how he felt about being chosen to receive Tauranga Historical Society’s annual heritage award on December 1 in the hall behind Brain Watkins House, Bob Tulloch laughingly admitted it was “a bit surprising”.

“It really is an honour,” said the 79-year-old.

In a career that’s spanned half a century, Tulloch estimates he’s gone through 10 cameras that have recorded the evolution of a city on film.

“I took photographs because I enjoyed it, but then I came to realise that, ‘Hey, this is a part of history’. Some are of events we no longer have, like the Orange Festival with the float parade and citrus queens, and I have photos of Mount Maunganui before the high-rises, Marineland, then Leisure Island and the opening of the Kaimai rail tunnel.

“I took photos of both harbour bridges – the construction, as well as shots from a helicopter of people walking across. I have pictures of Pāpāmoa before it really took off. I also came to realise that much of the history is determined by people. We have extraordinarily talented, visionary people here who’ve done some brilliant things, and they need to be acknowledged. So I photographed them.”

Ruatāhuna

Tulloch grew up in the tiny Te Urewera village of Ruatāhuna, where he was the only Pākehā in a school of about 100 students. With that understanding and respect for Māori language and culture within him since childhood, he’s particularly proud of a waka he photographed at Memorial Park that looked “as if it could’ve been taken 500 years ago”; and his all-time favourite project, photographing around 200 kaumātua and kuia of Tauranga Moana. It came about when he offered to photograph a woman as a gift to her for catering his wedding to his late wife, Lena.

“I wanted to thank her, so I took her portrait at her meeting house in Bethlehem, and I realised, ‘I should be doing more of this’, so I travelled to around 20 marae from Bowentown to Welcome Bay, inviting all the people aged over 60 to be photographed in their wharenui.

“I was tickled pink with the result. It ended up being a nice exhibition, and one portrait won gold at our national awards. For a lot of those people, it was a luxury to have a photograph taken, so it was nice to be able to do that for them. That’s when it’s satisfying as a photographer – when you’re doing it for the right reason, not just to try to sell a photograph.”

Record of our past

Tauranga Historical Society’s Fiona Kean said the annual heritage award is decided by society members and in conjunction with Tauranga City Council. The ceremony was held on December 1.

“Honestly, there couldn’t be a more deserving recipient. The way he’s captured the events of Tauranga over the years with his camera means we have a record of our past,” said Kean.

“He’s also passionate about the heritage of the city and making sure his old studio at 1 The Strand was preserved. That’s a heritage-listed building now. He’s just a wonderful guy, too, and it’s fitting that he got his start with the Owens family because a picture that Bob took of Mahé Drysdale’s grandfather, Sir Bob, still hangs in the mayor’s office.”

Bob Tulloch with his family after receiving the award. Photo / Chris Parker

It was a photograph of Sir Bob Owens’ first grandson that Tulloch said ‘changed my life’. It was 1974, when he’d just returned from Canada with creativity that wasn’t yet being explored here in New Zealand.

“The fact that the family loved it so much really opened doors for me. It was a portrait of 2-year-old Sam taken against the sun, with the light streaming through his hair. They’d never seen that kind of work before because photographers here were doing formal studio work, and this one was so different. It was my lucky break.”

Tulloch became known for his portraits but initially made his living covering weddings – “One year we got so busy, we covered 51 weddings from November to April” – as well as corporate, commercial and aerial photography.

Tauranga Historical Society president Julie Green with Bob Tulloch at the awards ceremony on December 1. Photo / Chris Parker

He photographed acclaimed novelist Sylvia Ashton-Warner in 1982, the year she received an MBE in the Queen’s Birthday honours list. She was already ill with bowel cancer and tried to hide her identity by booking a portrait sitting under the name of “Mrs Henderson”. Tulloch realised who she was immediately but was unphased.

“She came along in a gaudy, flowered dress, and all you could see was the dress, so I asked whether she would mind trying something different.

“I loaned her a black jumper and used window lighting. She died about a year later, and that portrait now hangs in the National Library [of New Zealand] in Wellington,” said Tulloch. “The life of being a photographer really can be fascinating, and the heritage award is an enormous honour. I’ve realised that the photographs I’ve taken have become a part of history, so for that, I say thank you.”