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I would just like to say congratulations again for being one of the finalists
in the National Photographic Portrait Prize for this year.

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And I'd like to invite you to tell us
a little bit about your portrait.

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Okay, so the portrait's of Vicky.

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So I got Vicky contacted me on social media
because I'm a Kiwi originally.

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So I was looking for, I was actually looking for someone
that had a tā moko, which is the Maori tattoo.

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And Vicky sent me a message saying that she hasn't got a tattoo, that she's looked at
some of my photos and felt comfortable if I could come and take a photo of her.

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Because she had no photos in her house, her and
no mirrors and all that sort of stuff.

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And she said she had a little bit of, do you think her words,
she said, "I'm a little, been a little bit burnt."

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Vicky's a pretty amazing lady, pretty
tough, I think in her words.

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She said if I was a Pākehā, which is like
Maori first, you know, us whiteies,

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that I probably wouldn't have survived in her
strength, that's what got her through.

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So lots of surgeries, she was going in for a surgery
the next day, just to loosen everything up.

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So I said, look, after that we'll take the photo.

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And she's like, no, no, just take the photo now.

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So it was lunchtime, we sat outside, the worst
possible conditions to take a photo ever.

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Direct sun, everything, it was just brutal.

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And I said, look, we'll take some photos,
I might have to come back.

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And most of the photos are absolutely
rubbish, to be perfectly honest.

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And this one sort of shone.

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And sometimes when you edit photos, they
take on a bit of a life of their own.

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And this one just did.

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So I phoned Vicky, I said, look, you know, we obviously can't, you know,
it's not going to be, you know, like a glamour shot or anything.

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So we're trying, it's sort of taking on the life of a photo
that's got, you know, really shows her warrior spirit.

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And so I sort of shared that with her and then Vicky started crying
and it's like, yeah, keep going with that, it's fine.

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The bun carving around her neck represents the two children,
which is sort of lost because of what happened,

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which because of all this, they're actually coming
back into her life, which is pretty special.

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So yeah, it's a fairly emotional journey.
I've been on with Vicky.

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I suppose sort of embedded in the photo.

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I like to think is the, you know, the relationship that we developed like
on the day and was developed over time and that keeps getting stronger.

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So, so, so yeah, it was from originally I said,
I said that I wouldn't take the photo.

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And then she's the question was like, why not?

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And I said, well, because I'm
not really a photographer.

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I said, I'm just a guy with the camera.

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And I said you know, you need someone to do it.

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And then her words were, you know,
just take the effing photo bro.

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It was like, you know, so, so yeah, so she's doing,
she does a lot of sort of charity work.

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Now she always worked in prisons and now does a lot of work
with like troubled teens and that sort of stuff.

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So she's a tough warrior lady.

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So that's why once again, I called it like
the name the kaha, which is, you know,

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for that warrior spirit. So yeah, that's,
that's kind of the photo.

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So it's really sort of, you
know, an emotional thing.

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And it's, you know, done quite
a bit for me in my life.

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And I think Ricky and her.

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So the journey's been quite
spectacular I must say.