14 Sep 2021

Using photography to showcase te ao Māori

From Afternoons, 1:32 pm on 14 September 2021

Photographer Te Rawhitiroa Bosch says without te reo Māori in his life, he wouldn’t be where he is today.

To celebrate Te Wiki o te Reo Māori 2021, he joins Jesse Mulligan to talk about the impact of te reo on his journey.

You can view his work at Rawhitiroa Photography.

Te Rawhitiroa Bosch

Te Rawhitiroa Bosch Photo: Te Rawhitiroa Bosch Rawhitiroa Photography

Bosch says he was one of the first students at Te Kura Kaupapa Māori o Tōku Māpihi Maurea in Hamilton, with his grandmother, mother, and aunts being Te Ātaarangi teachers.

"It wasn't actually until later on when I was at my marae back up home and one of cousins from the marae said 'don't play with him, he doesn't speak English', that's when I started speaking English.

"Our grandparents were all beaten for speaking our own language so they didn't really teach their kids, our parents' generation, because what was the commonly accepted truth was you needed to speak English and needed to have English to get on in this changing world.

"So because of that our parents' generation didn't have te reo Māori as the first language ... so our generation were the first ones again to be growing up with te reo Māori as a first language.

He says even in high school, people questioned him on what the value was in learning the language. 

"Me and a lot of my mates have had this conversation that a lot of us wouldn't be in the positions we are, we wouldn't have the opportunities we have, we wouldn't have the jobs we have, if we didn't have te reo Māori."

Bosch says not many photographers are fluent in te reo or tikanga Māori which has created a niche market for him to capture the beauty and power of te ao Māori.

"It is a different world view [knowing te reo Māori]. It leads to a deeper understanding; it means I can connect on a completely different level with a lot of our whānau around the country.

"I'm able to go places where other photographers aren't able to go. I get given opportunities or get given jobs that others may not, purely for the fact that I have te reo Māori.

"People describe the photos like 'man, you're catching us as we really are', and to me that's beautiful. I don't want anyone to be posing or trying to be something they're not. So to be able to connect with people in a real way, that means we can capture at their most beautiful."

Capturing the reality of te ao Māori has been one of his overarching kaupapa that helps him choose what jobs to take, he says.

"For a lot of years, a lot of the media has been [reporting about] 'sick Māori, sad Māori, bad Māori', all of those sorts of stereotypes being reinforced.

"Yeah, the heaviness exists, yeah some of those statistics and stuff is real, but our everyday experience of each other is loving Māori, ingenious Māori, talented Māori, entrepreneurial Māori, all those sorts of things.

"That's how I see our people, how I see our world and that's what I am trying to uplift and share with our world, so that we can see ourselves as we really are and also so that our other mates can see us as we are."