Magazine Section

Pacific Islands Monthly

The Face Behind The

South Sea's Most

Famous Camera

By a Staff Writer

The South Pacific’s best-known photographer took his first look at Sydney in December since the time, 30 years ago, that he played in a band at Bondi.

“This place has changed so much I don’t know Pitt Street from Hyde Park, and the traffic is just plain mad,” said Rob Wright, whose camera has recorded most of the important changes in the South Seas in the last 20 years. Somehow he has never found the chance to call in on Sydney since 1932.

I THAT year the Sydney Harbour Bridge had only just been opened but Wright never crossed it until this visit.

“Glad to see it is still standing,” he grinned as Sydneysider David Ragg, who, like Rob, was born in Fiji, drove him across it.

Rob Wright is in charge of the

photographic section of the Fiji Pub lic Relations Office. His photographs have for years appeared regularly in the world’s leading magazines and in newspapers and periodicals every where.

They are well-known to PIM readers —there are many of his prints in this issue. Two of his pictures not long ago were selected by the Ency clopaedia Britannica to appear among the “Best 200 Press Pictures of a Decade”. For his work on behalf of Fiji (and Colonial Office) publicity he received the MBE in 1959.

Rob Wright was born Robertson Ramsay Wright at the Government station, Sigatoka, Fiji, in July, 1906, son of an Englishman whose family had originally migrated to Australia.

Young Wright grew up with the Fijians, and in the Rewa River area learned to swim and fish—the start of something which next to photography is his greatest interest today. He is a skilled skindiver and an authority on fishing in Fiji, His weekly fishing column appears in The Fiji Times.

Wright was 16 when he became fascinated by photography—through a continental photographer who was then visiting Fiji and who encouraged him. But there was no immediate op portunity for making a living out of photography, so Wright acquired a saxophone and taught himself to play.

That was how he arrived in Aus tralia 30 years ago, where he eked out a wage playing in bands and theatre orchestras in Sydney and Melbourne. (Over)

?ob Wright (above) on the job in Sydney in December Below is a typical Wright picture which he has called "Room with a View". ? shows Ron Ricketts, a retired resident of evuka, at the window of the Hot Springs Hotel at Savusavu.

This was at the height of the finan cial depression and the living was precarious.

So in 1933 he returned to Suva, en route to America on a 50 ft yacht the Nomad which a mate had ac quired. There were four of them in the crew and they took six months to sail her to the US, calling at Tonga, Samoa, Pukapuka, Suwarrow, Penryhn and Honolulu before reach ing San Francisco.

This type of trans-Pacific sailing was a novelty in those days. Probably the first time Wright’s name appeared in PIM was in December, 1935, as a result of that trip. He wrote to the Editor, bringing readers up to date with conditions on Suwarrow, where the party had “cavorted for four glorious days, kings of all we sur veyed”.

In the US, Wright worked around the west coast, making music in nightclubs and speak-easies, during the prohibition days. For young Rob Wright it was an exciting era. For a time he was rugby football coach at the University of San Francisco, and even tried gold fossicking around the Sierra Nevada country—without success.

It was gold which attracted him back to Fiji. Wright’s father wrote that gold had been discovered in Tavua, so back came Rob, only to find the field had been staked for miles around.

He did the next best thing and went to work for Loloma mine, which was then being developed. Shift-work left him with time on his hands, so he imported camera equipment and started to acquire a practical know ledge of photography.

Even the mine management be came interested in Wright’s hobby, and commissioned him to photograph mine developments.

World War II took Wright and his wife (they now have three children) to Suva. There he called in to see Harold Cooper, then the chief of a newly-formed Government Informa tion Office.

Wright was employed on trial to take photographs for the London War Ministry of the war effort in the Islands and soon he found himself with a fulltime appointment. He and Cooper, commissioned in the Fiji Military Forces, travelled widely through the Pacific.

When the war ended the Informa tion Office didn’t—and Wright found himself doing a publicity job for Fiji, with plenty of side trips to other islands—particularly to Tonga, where Queen Salote had known him and his camera since he was a young man.

Wright has photographed most of

the important Tongan historical occa sions in recent years—including Queen Elizabeth’s visit there in 1954 (Wright will be on hand in Fiji ir February to photograph Queen Eliza beth on her way to Australia.) In the first years after the wan Wright found himself up against new competition. His wartime work had been excellent, but it had found ready publication anyhow because of the interest in the Pacific.

But soon he was faced with stiff competition for magazine and news paper space against top world photo graphers with first-class equipment and fully-fitted darkrooms—men who didn’t have to conquer the climatic conditions of the South Sea Islands.; He spent hours experimenting ter beat the climate. He concocted for mulas of his own, which could work well but which were too messy and: cumbersome for everyday practice.

Wright had to forget the text books? which called for a 68 degree tempera ture as being the ultimate for good; photographic work. At times he would open raw film just after itr had arrived in Fiji and find it ruined by fungus.

But Wright won through, over coming these technical difficulties and! many others peculiar to the Islands,.; such as the problems of staff training..; He has always scrutinised even the mechanical work turned outt in his darkroom, striving hard to keepq it up to the high standards he has? set.

It has meant more time and but it is worth it, when an overseas? editor writes to say, “Thank you„i Rob Wright, for some very nices quality prints.”

Rob Wright's fame as a camerman earns him frequent trips outside Fiji. In August last year, he was commissioned to cisit the Solomons to cover the 20th anniversary celebrations in Honiara of the landing of the US Marines on Guadalcanal. During that visit, he took the above picture of Administration officials' bungalows at Auki, Malaita. He will be doing more of the Type of publicity work in other British island groups this year.

Rob Wright's camera has captured many happy scenes such as this: Lady Maddocks, wife of Fiji's Governor, with a vivacious Fijian baby and its admiring mother at the village of Naevuevu. They are wonderful publicity for Fiji, for pictures like this appear all over the world.

High up in the Bismarck Mountains of New uinea, about half way between Goroka and lladang, is a unique school where more than 300 ew Guinea youngsters probably speak better English than any other group of native children i the Territory.

The school is St. Francis of Assisi Native Boarding School Bundi, which was founded in 1958 by Father Michael Morri i>n, a Divine Word missionary, of Toowoomba, Queensland.

Originally, 36 boys attended the school. Now there are 207 oy boarders and 131 girl boarders, and plans are in hand to ive full boarding school facilities to 450 children.