Westhaven, Auckland

On 22 March 1989, Peter Peryer hired a small aeroplane from the North Shore aerodrome and requested that the pilot fly over Westhaven Marina. Using the designated air routes, the aeroplane got as close to the marina as was legally permitted. The artist then opened the vehicle’s window and held his Rolleiflex outside the airplane so that he could expose his roll film.

The resulting photograph is one of the most arresting images in the artist’s career. Showing three types of grids in sharp focus, the picture epitomises Auckland as the ‘City of Sails’. It affirms the marina’s existence because of the 1959 opening of the Auckland Harbour Bridge. Using the familiar trope of Peryer’s where scale is played with, the photograph shows a seascape which is only visible from the air so that viewers become familiar with a place in a manner they rarely encounter in daily life.

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