Marti: The Passionate Eye

Marti's photographs were fundamentally about New Zealand in a way that I dare say a New Zealander could not have captured because when you're born in a land you become blind to it. You no longer see the beauties within.

– Daniel K. Brown, School of Design, Victoria University

If you liked yourself you were accused of skiting and I used to say to people 'But you have to like yourself in order to live well.'

– Marti Friedlander

When she photographs a person, it's never simply a photograph of a human being. Theres always two or three layers of meaning below it. She rarely photographs someone she doesn't know, and she knows people very quickly, so that's quite easy for her. But Marti, when she photographs a person, decides who they are and in that context, decides even whether she’ll shoot up at them, versus down…

– Daniel K. Brown, School of Design, Victoria University, explains Friedlander’s portraiture

One has to enjoy and like what one is photographing. This was an unfamiliar world, I was excited by what I was seeing and I needed to photograph it.

– Marti Friedlander on photographing New Zealand

It had such an effect on me, losing our baby, I decided that if we returned to New Zealand, I was going to be a photographer. So, in a sense, losing our baby was the catalyst for me to start a career as a photographer. I started by photographing children.

– Marti Friedlander becoming a photographer