a little about Gilbert van Reenen Gilbert van Reenen emigrated to New Zealand from Indonesia with his family as a youngster. His schooling was in Invercargill. He then trained as a veterinary scientist at New Zealand's defining University, Massey, and has practiced in various parts of the South Island. He then specialised in deer medicine and management then reproduction technology and research in production animals. He developed a veterinary pharmaceutical which is widely used in the deer industry. In 1995 he turned his life long interest and passion for photography into a second professional career and rapidly gained a reputation as a creative commercial photographer. He has been a keen aviator and has logged more than 1700 hours as a pilot. As a university student he had a dream job during his summer vacations on ongoing research studies of the ecology and botany of the South Island alpine grasslands for the then Forest Research Institute (F&RES). During the course of five action packed summers, he explored the headwaters of most of the major river catchment in the Te Wahi Pounamu Southern Alps for that work... mostly on foot. His professional photography involves commercial, editorial and illustrative assignments for branding, creating displays, advertising and various publications. He has produced the decor art for a number of resorts and hotels in Australia and New Zealand. Gilbert is a keen naturalist and is involved with the development of the Te Araroa national pathway and is a founding trustee of the Otago Te Araroa Trust. Gilbert has served several terms as a member of the Otago Conservation Board. He has lived near Wanaka in Central Otago with his fabric artist wife Robyn for over 40 years. He has travelled throughout New Zealand and internationally on his assignments. He has been on photographic expeditions to Antarctica, North & South America, Australia, Japan, China, Turkey, Indonesia, Italy, Croatia, India, Kashmir & Ladakh and recently Argentina and Chile for the second time. He has been involved in several strenuous expeditions to remote parts of Fiordland and Rakiura. Gilbert has had numerous solo and group exhibitions throughout New Zealand. Some of the notable ones included Our Wider World, which travelled to several galleries. It was a joint show with eminent former New Zealand Poet Laureate, Brian Turner . The exhibition matched Turner's lyrical and eloquent poetry to van Reenen's images - mostly of Central Otago. Both Turner and van Reenen are deeply concerned about the wanton desecration of the fragile Central Otago environment by ill conceived schemes promoted with dubious claims of community benefits. Click HERE to see a slide show of a selection of Gilbert's images matched to Brian's wonderful engaging poetry. Gilbert has published four books. His first, Central Otago is a best seller and has just been reprinted for the fourth time. This was followed by New Zealand South which was also highly acclaimed. His latest book is titled "The Nature of Wanaka" was very well received and is now out of print. He has more books in the pipeline. He contributed most of the images for Brian Turner's best selling back country miscellany Into The Wider World Another major book project, also published by Random House, was s collaborative effort which received rave reviews titled Elemental - Central Otago Poems by Brian Turner illustrated by Gilbert. For a photo essay of some of the images from the book click HERE . Gilbert published a book on the history of the Treble Cone Skifield near Wanaka. Another collaborative exhibition was with distinguished printmaker Liz Hawker, named Stranded and depicted the grim experiences of a gang of 10 sealers, led by Davey Louston, who were stranded on the open Bay Islands off the coast of Haast in South Westland for four years from 1810 - 1814 before being rescued by a passing ship "Governor Bligh" The exhibition showed in several south island galleries Gilbert has developed another website with a searchable database of his images. Vital Images is an ongoing project. During the summer of 2013, Gilbert was commissioned by the NZ Centre for Art Research at Auckland University to locate and photograph the southern locations of the drawings, sketches and paintings of the eminent 19th Century scientific illustrator naturalist & artist John Buchanan (FLS). Gilbert's Then & Now images were used as part of the Hocken Library exhibition about Buchanan's life and work entitled Art in the Service of Science: Dunedin's John Buchanan (1819 - 1898) which was shown at the Gus Fisher Gallery in Auckland. Some of those "Then & Now" images can be viewed Here. Gilbert's fabric artist wife Robyn has been the organiser of the acclaimed Wanaka Autumn Art School for 31 years and Gilbert has been responsible for developing several of the highly regarded photography classes at the school. In 2014 Gilbert was awarded the Whare Kea / Kenneth Myer Artist in Residence fellowship at the Whare Kea Chalet on the Albert Burn Saddle above the East Branch of the Matukituki valley adjacent to the Mt Aspiring National Park.Gilbert followed on from the spectacular work of the acclaimed sculptor Martin Hill the inaugural Artist in Residence there. Gilbert spent two 10 day stints there in the winter and late spring and focussed on a broad suite of photographic projects including Time Lapse video sequences from the location. You can read his blog posts HERE Gilbert was accompanied on the first stint with his talented daughter Erica, and they together produced a well illustrated daily blog while on the mountain, which you can access & read HERE.