Cooped up during the first of Aotearoa New Zealand’s pandemic lockdowns, food photographer Sophie Merkens dreamed of breaking free.
Her plan became a reality when, a year later, with a publisher signed up, she took off on a road trip around the country to speak to thirty-five women who were growing, harvesting, foraging, and hunting their own food.
These interviews became her book, Grow: Wāhine Finding Connection Through Food, a gorgeous publication that showcases Merkens’ talent as a photographer, storyteller, and connector of ideas and people.
In this interview, she speaks to Shorthand about this journey, whether digital media has improved our relationship with what we eat, and how she tried to make safe spaces for people to share their stories.
Thomasin Sleigh: Sophie, you have a wide skill set: photography, writing, and gardening. What came first?
Sophie Merkens: A lot of it happened organically. I garden and forage and that brings me so much joy. With foraging, the more you learn, the more you realise you have to learn.
For work, I fluctuate between photography, writing, and food; I develop recipes and do food styling, and I’m happiest when there’s a story behind it. I learned to cook when I was 18, when I lived in Mexico for a year on a student exchange. I did a Bachelor of Visual Arts and Design at Unitec, so I studied photography in media arts, and then writing came with time.
I wanted to be able to write articles and do photography; the whole package. And as I was traveling, I was writing travel stories and editorial pieces. Over time, food wove its way in until I realised that my whole life was about food, and that even my travel diaries are everything we ate and what vegetables were around, or how they were growing.
TS: Gardening and photography both seem to be about marking time and taking notice. Is that the case for you?
SM: Sometimes I don't fully know how I feel about something and then I pick up the camera and I'll photograph what I'm up to or do self-portraits, or in the garden; it's a tool that I use personally to help process things.
I have a plot at a community garden that I've had for three or four years. When I started everything was very linear and I had a clear plan about how it was going to grow. Now, it's completely overgrown and it's a jungle of food and it's a journey!
TS: Where did the idea for your book, Grow, come from?
SM: The idea came before New Zealand’s lockdown in 2020. I’d been working in food advertising for a couple of years, but I kept thinking more about the story of the food: Who grows it? What's the story behind it? Whose hands were in the soil? I wanted the whole story of food.
I had thought: I'll do a mini-series and photograph six amazing people from the north island — a diver, a hunter, a beekeeper, a grower, and others.
Then lockdown happened and I had no work. But I had time to think and dream and I put a call out on different social media channels, looking for these women. I got so many replies and I realised that it was way more than six, and that there was a book there.
I found lockdown very claustrophobic, so when it ended, I started looking for vans and I got a publisher on board, and I set off on a wicked roadie!
TS: In your discussions, did you find that gardening knowledge was passed through a matriarchy?
SM: That’s a common thread, for sure, and it’s definitely that way in my life. My mum is an epic gardener and her mother is, too. Though often people's fathers had a lot to do with it, especially when it came to hunting, fishing, and teaching those skills. It is just varied and specific to each person.
TS: Hunting is an interesting example, I imagine it’s not always expected for a father to pass these skills onto his daughter.
SM: The hunters that I spoke to, like Pania Te Paiho and Enga Pelosi-Fear, said that once they had that knowledge, they wanted to share it with other women. Both Pania and Enga have both taken it on as a mission to teach women because they've found it so empowering on many levels: financially, for their independence, mentally, and physically. They want to share that knowledge and that gift.
TS: The subtitle of the book is Wāhine Finding Connection Through Food. What are they connecting with?
SM: It connects them to the rivers, to the land, to the air, to place, but also to ourselves and our bodies, our mental health, our families, our communities — to everything. This is a pivotal idea in the book.
TS: How did you prepare for the interviews?
SM: I love that I was able to go on these massive tangents and have food as the anchor, but then talk about belonging, motherhood, capitalism, and decolonisation!
I prepped as much as I could. I intentionally had hobbyists as well as experts in the book, because I wanted it to be accessible on different levels. So for people like Dr Jessica Hutchings, who's written multiple books, there was a lot of research I could do. For others, who I’d met through social media, I had to wing it a bit. I had to let the conversations go where they need, and my publisher gave me that freedom.
Sometimes I’d go in with this idea of what we talk about — body image or raising girls — but then we just go on this complete tangent and I’d love that.
With a few people I went in with specific questions, again, with Dr. Jessica Hutchings, I really wanted to talk about Māori food sovereignty. So the conversation was steered that way because it was a complete honour to get a glimpse into her world.
TS: Did you talk to people in their homes, or their gardens?
SM: People chose and I worked around their schedule. Some interviews were done in an hour and a half, from start to finish, including photographs, which is incredibly fast. And then some people, I spent a week with them, so it's just about availability and where they felt comfortable.
I learned pretty early on that it's better to do the interview without other people around because people get shy and distracted. One of them I did walking, which was interesting, but she felt more comfortable and felt her thoughts could flow while walking. So we just did loops in her garden and recorded it, which I thought was brilliant.
TS: You said in an interview about the book that it's brave to tell your story, and I think that's right. There's a vulnerability that you're asking of people. Was it hard to make sure people felt safe?
SM: I feel very protective of the woman in the book. It's a fine line because, for journalism or writing for magazines, you want the story, but these are people's lives and they might be vulnerable with you, but you also get a vulnerability hangover for them. Do they regret it? Are they okay with it?
They all signed off the copy, because I needed to know that they were okay. And there were a couple that we did adapt the copy because they said this is a bit too raw, so we took certain things out. It was definitely on my mind that you want vulnerability, but also it's not my story to tell. It's a privilege to share the stories of others.
TS: I read a review of Grow that said the photography in the book was un-Instagram-y. You show muddy fingernails and gumboots. How did you pick the photos you used?
SM: I prefer more natural photography and working with what's in the garden and there's an aspect of that even in my commercial work.
My publisher picked most of the photos. I don’t know if that’s normal or not? I felt I was too close to them after a certain point. There were a few where I said, “Hey, can this one come in because this is my favourite?” There's that compromise when you are a team working together that sometimes you get it your way, sometimes their way, and you let things slide.
There were also surprises! For example, in Enga's interview about hunting, there are a lot of detailed images that are not very Instagramable — a half-skinned rabbit, for example. And Sally chose a big photo of a bloody chopping board; I was quite impressed that she chose that.
TS: Was there one photograph that, after you had left the interview, that you wished you had taken?
SM: With Fleur Sullivan, for example, she's a busy lady, her restaurant was still running then, and any time with her is an honour. We had spent an hour together and we had a good chat and I got some great photos, but I had a gut feeling that I hadn’t got it quite yet.
I texted her the next morning at 7am because she's an early bird. I said, “You’d mentioned going foraging for watercress. If you’re going today, can I please come along?” She was really gracious and I ended up spending half a day with her and we went op shopping and fun things that aren't in the book but are treasured memories.
There's times like that where I had to swallow my pride or be a bit vulnerable or brave and say, “Actually, can I come back?”
TS: How did you do the underwater photography?
SM: I have so much respect for underwater photographers!
I bought an underwater casing which I’d had my eye on for a little while. It's so bizarre if you're not used to it, which I'm not, to have your camera, your very expensive, essential equipment, underwater and to be in the water too, and try to be aware of everything.
You're holding a camera and trying to dive down and you keep an eye on the waves. It was just hilarious! With Renée, we went out, it was the middle of winter. It wasn't a very clear day, the visibility was shocking and I didn't have a weight belt, so I was quite buoyant and I kept trying to dive down to get the photos of her, but my body would come up. I was a contortionist, like my legs would be up here!
TS: What do you think makes good food photography?
SM: In my personal opinion, four things make great food photography: light, mood, story, and ingredients.
If it's a beetroot burger, I love to see the beetroot come straight out of the garden with dirt on it. For me, that's ingredients, but that's also story, and also mood. I love it when there's more attached to a recipe, when there's story and emotion and memory.
It's not quite my style, but dark and moody, but I’m a huge fan of Christall Lowe who has just brought out the book Kai; she's an amazing creator. Her photographs are so moody and delicious.
TS: What’s a day in the life of a food stylist entail?
SM: It changes per job. If I'm on a commercial shoot, I come in and we're a team of say, five, there's a videographer and a photographer, and I might be chefing and food styling, and there's a prep chef and another person on hand to help out.
There's a lot of prep beforehand, thinking about what you want to say and what mood you're going for and the colours and the vibe and the props you'll use. So you have all that set up beforehand and then there's a lot of play collaboration with the photographer — getting things to look right and have a feel.
You're just frantic on your feet all day! I recently did a fun shoot for Bocuse d'Or Team New Zealand with Comvita; I was art directing. That was a completely different vibe. I think there were 12 of us working on it. We were making sure every shot looks right in the camera and that there's a food story coming through that, if they're talking about specific ingredients and you've got those showcased.
TS: Do you think seeing so many more images of food, online, has changed the way we eat?
SM: Yes. I get complete permission to photograph my food because it's my job! If I’m in a restaurant I'll still take a little phone photo and I don't think it's a bad thing. I think it helps how we connect with our food, because if you’re photographing it, you’re appreciating it, you’re paying attention to it, you’re seeing its story — and I think this is a positive thing, that people will hopefully appreciate the effort and ingredients and the story behind it.
As long as after you take that photo, you can pop your camera down and enjoy your meal.
When I’m out hiking, I love to photograph, especially the plants. But I think as long as you're off your phone or camera a little bit of the time, as long as you're not fixating on creating a perfect story, you can also appreciate something through a lens, too. Everything in moderation, I guess!
I think by seeing so many images of food it helps bring conversations to the table about our food producers. I'm a proud Eat New Zealand kaitaki (guardian), along with incredible foodies from around Aotearoa.
Eat New Zealand is a not-for-profit food movement dedicated to connecting people to Aotearoa's land and ocean through food. A lot of their focus is on connecting the eater to the producer. I think that social media and seeing so many images of food online creates amazing tools to have these conversations in the public eye. Then real, positive change happens.
TS: Are there new digital tools or platforms that you’re exploring this year?
SM: The speed that everything changes is quite overwhelming at times, and I'm not the most techy of humans. But I'm going to invest more time in video. Not to become a videographer, but to tell those stories and almost create little tasters of interviews that I do as a marketing and connection tool.
I think that photography is like cooking. If you've got really good tools and a really great oven, fantastic. But, you can cook well with anything! Similarly, I think the best camera is the one you've got on you, and most people now have these, like extremely sophisticated cameras in their phones. I think the best tools are the ones that you're using and you've got on you.
TS: What's growing in your garden at the moment?
SM: I rent this tiny little house; it's tinier than a tiny house. And I've got a little container garden here so I've got herbs and things for tea. But I also have a community garden plot where I’ve currently got winter veg growing. I'm about to harvest the yacons, a wonderful sweet and juicy root veg that you can eat raw. At the moment the yacon plants are over two metres tall and in flower. They're stunning. In the rest of the plot are cabbages, broccoli, broad beans, bok choy, celery, flowers for the bees, and edible weeds.
Whilst the larger winter veggies take a while to grow, I add chickweed, dead nettle, and other green weeds to my meals. The garden is definitely one of my happy places.
One big takeaway from Grow is that it is, unfortunately, a complete privilege to grow your own food. You need time, space, money, resources, and knowledge.
I am privileged to have this space where I can go and grow and get support and learn from other gardeners. It brings me so much joy to go down to the garden, and nourishment. At the moment with the economy the way it is, a lot of people are struggling to make ends meet and I feel so grateful that I have this amazing free food source.
I think we are getting further away from circularity and reuse. But if there could be financial help to, for example, turn all the grass berms into gardens or plant fruit trees. It's just, we have all these amazing resources and it would be cool if we could change our thinking about that, but also have some help for people if they want to grow their own food.
I wish other people could have access to grow their own food because it helps my mental health, my physical health, my budget, and it makes me happy.
Story images courtesy of Sophie Merkens. Title background photo: Yoann Laheurte
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