For almost 30 years, Jae Frew has been the man behind many of the stunning portraits of New Zealand’s favourite faces featured in the pages of the Weekly. From politicians to TV stars and even a Dame or two, he has done it all.
But as he reflects on his career, Jae admits working with superstar soprano Dame Kiri Te Kanawa will stay with him for a long time.
“Dame Kiri is the closest thing we have to royalty in this country, in my opinion,” enthuses the 55-year-old. “She’s really good fun. I have the utmost respect for her and what she’s done in her career, and as a representative of Aotearoa. She’s such a giving person.”
Jae says Dame Kiri is “really good fun”.
While many would be starstruck meeting the likes of Jacinda Ardern or Sir Edmund Hillary, Jae learned early in his career that at the end of the day “we are all just people”.
“We have some really lovely people in this country to photograph, and by and large I’ve had some wonderful experiences working with them,” he says. “It’s been a real privilege to have them in front of my camera, but I’m never starstruck.
“I’ll be nervous in that I’ve got a job to do and I need to get the right image for whoever I’m working for. I always respect the person that I have in front of the camera because they’re giving me their time and trusting me to produce a lovely image.”
Compared to most photographers, Jae started his career late in life. He’d always enjoyed it as a hobby, but it wasn’t until his late 20s that he decided to take a chance at making it his full-time job.
At the time, he was employed as a facilities manager and video editor at the newly launched TV3, and offered his services to the publicity department taking promotional shots for their series. He started off working on kids’ shows and taking any photography job he could find on the side to pay his bills.
But it was only a few years before his talents were appreciated and in 1995, Jae found himself working full-time in the glamorous world of women’s magazines at the Weekly.
“Those were the days where you could ring any airline and say, ‘We want to go to Fiji for a fashion shoot’ and they’d give you as many tickets as you liked,” recalls Jae with a smile.
While he was there for the highs, he was also there for the lowest of times when the magazine was temporarily shut down at the start of the pandemic in 2020.
While Jae, like many others, wondered what his future held, it also meant he had time to sit and think about making his dream of putting on his own photography exhibit a reality.
“When you’re raising a family and building a career, you get swamped in the day-to-day life admin,” he confides. “So, during Covid, when I didn’t have any work, I had the headspace to think about what I loved.”
He thought back to his childhood in Tauranga, where he had an aviary in his backyard, and would sometimes breed and sell birds to make a bit of extra pocket money. And he also reminisced about his days spent with his father in his workshop, watching and learning as his dad made cabinets and furniture.
The result is Manu Kōingo: Birds of Yearning – a series of portraits of endangered or extinct native birds, displayed in frames made of recycled timber from endangered trees, all handmade by Jae himself. The intention behind the exhibition is to remind Kiwis to cherish and care for our homeland.
Watch the birdie! Jae’s exhibition has been a labour of love.
Though he has nurtured a life-long love of the natural world, Jae knows shooting the taxidermy collection of birds is the closest he’ll get to being a nature photographer.
“I don’t think I’ve got the patience for it,” he laughs. “I love walking – I did the Routeburn track with my wife and daughters over Christmas – and being in nature, but the top nature photographers spend weeks and years tracking their subjects. I’d sooner shoot taxidermy; that at least keeps still!”
It’s not just a love of the great outdoors that his daughters, Emily, 27, and Claudia, 25, whom he shares with wife Jo, 58, have inherited, it is also his creativity. And while they haven’t followed him into a life behind the lens, they still support Jae in everything he does.
“It thrills me that they’re very creative and savvy. Claudia’s in marketing and she’s helping me with social media to promote my show,” he beams.
“They can both take a good photo – and they’ll tell me how to take a photo as well. They’ll say, ‘No, Dad, that’s all wrong. Do it this way!'”
Jae’s exhibition Manu Kōingo: Birds of Yearning opens at the Parnell Gallery on Tuesday, March 21. You can view his work at parnellgallery.co.nz
