John Ramsay

Born in Hamilton in 1958, and raised mainly in Auckland, John Ramsay went on to study science at Massey University, before doing extended time overseas. Returning home in the mid 1980s, he learnt about photography and soon fell in love with moving pictures. He began filming a busy diet of documentaries and commercials, and set up camera company Shoot with Simon Moore. Keen on any project involving a plane or helicopter, Ramsay's credits included award-winning documentary Relative Guilt, 50 Years of Television, and many projects for Māori Television. He passed away on 12 March 2017.

John was one of those unique directors of photography that you could trust implicitly to send off overseas by himself to shoot a job – no matter how challenging. Simon Moore, John Ramsay's business partner at camera company Shoot