Photographer Robynne Hayward grew up in New Zealand’s Northland region, first as a child in Whangārei and then later in picturesque Doubtless Bay near the very tip of the North Island. While her interest in photography started in adulthood, she was, she says, a very visual person from early in life.
‘I loved art class when I was at school. We were in a small town high school, but the New Zealand government had a Country Services program where they paid teachers to work for two-year placements where normally they wouldn’t have wanted to go. We ended up getting really brilliant, high quality teachers.’
At 15, when the school system compelled her to choose between arts or languages, her parents made
