Self-Portrait

From a childhood in London orphanages to half a century in New Zealand photographing wine-makers and artists, children and kuia, Marti Friedlander has lived a rich life - one defined by the art of looking, seeing, capturing on film. In Self-Portrait, Marti tells her story for the first time. As unflinching and clear in prose as in her photographs, she describes growing up in a London orphanage, being Jewish, working in a Kensington photography studio, marrying a New Zealander and moving to a challenging new country. Here she spent her life photographing the ordinary and the extraordinary, protests and politicians, balloons and beaches. Seeing with a stranger's eye, Marti Friedlander describes how she captured the transformation of New Zealand's life over more than fifty years. This book is a rich meditation on one woman's photographic journey through the twentieth century.