Obituary: William Wright FPSNZ By Anne Tate APSNZ
EVERYONE LOVED WILLIAM. He was the kind of person that people gravitate to with his quiet smile, thoughtfulness and gentle ways. I first met William when he joined the Hutt Camera Club in 2003. He was the quiet one and I’m the rowdy one, but we bonded firmly in our shared love of photography. William was a fabulous photographer, a true artist. He was a sensitive soul and I think that is reflected in a lot of his images. He would photograph most things but he loved landscapes and had a particular affinity for architectural work and abstracts. He was awarded his Associateship in 2007 and followed it by attaining his Fellowship in 2016 with a magnificent body of work titled Urban Forest. His images were double exposures of trees and buildings, beautifully blended together into works of art. William joined the PSNZ Council in 2010 and in 2019 was recognised with a Service Award, along with Neil Gordon, for their outstanding contribution in developing, implementing and administering the database. William and I always travelled to conventions together. On one occasion we were driving through the Taranaki region when I spotted a car wrecker’s yard. I backed up but unfortunately the fences were something like seven feet high. Not willing to be deterred I walked down a side alley where the fence miraculously dropped to a rickety 3-wire job. I hopped over and had reached some of the cars when I suddenly realised that William had not followed me. I turned and waited. After a pause he jumped over and we spent a happy hour or so, trespassing all over this wrecker’s yard. It wasn’t until a long, long time later that he ‘fessed up the reason for his
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hesitation. He was waiting to see if there was a guard dog. This incident gave rise to William’s quote in the 2012 edition of NZ Camera. “It’s not a proper photo trip if you haven’t had to climb at least one fence to get the shot you want.” And so, jumping fences became a ‘thing’. William and I went to Central Otago, five years running, to attend Tony Bridge’s winter workshops. By the third year we knew all of Tony’s lecture material but so enjoyed the opportunity to commune with like-minded souls for a week and photograph the stunning Otago light, that we kept going back. We would all eat in the Wedderburn Tavern which was across the road from the cottages that we stayed in. Central Otago pub meals are massive and very quickly we decided that we needed to shake the meal down before going back to do our photo homework. We walked down the road a bit and came across the Otago Rail Trail. On a complete whim we decided to walk up the
