Graham Wilson and Michael Bajko
Sports Day '67
Catalogue of the exhibition
'Onslow College Sports Day 1967'
Also includes additional photo book
'But Wait, There's More!
Both soft cover, A5, stapled
Available while they last.
$10.00 for both booklets together

Parts A and B

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Onslow College Sports Day 1967
Photos by Graham Wilton & Michael Bajko
Photospace Gallery, 4th-28th April 2014

The photos in this exhibition have been scanned and printed digitally by Michael Bajko from negatives taken by him and his best mate Graham Wilton (who led the photography initiative at the time) in March, 1967 at Onslow College, near Johnsonville, Wellington. They were both fifteen-year-olds using hand-me-down cameras. The eight rolls of film from the day were developed in a wardrobe that served as a photographic darkroom.

Speaking personally now as James Gilberd, Photospace gallery owner, I attended Onslow College from 1977-81, and my older brother and sisters were also students there. I visited the school in March this year as a professional photographer, taking photos for the next school prospectus. The roll is now around 1250, and the surrounding hills (bare grazing land in 1967) are covered in houses lower down and native bush higher up. There is not a school uniform in sight these days, nor was there when I was a student.

Onslow College has always been relatively relaxed and fairly liberal, while maintaining a high academic standard. The culture of the school sets students up well for university, the real world and life in general. It was the first secondary school in New Zealand to drop the school uniform. When my brother Peter was there (circa 1967-71) he still wore the grey uniform most of the time, but it became optional during that period.

While times have changed a great deal since 1967 when Graham and Michael were students, something about the school is recognisable in the faces and attitudes of the kids and teachers in the photographs; and I found much of that same thing in the photos I took in 2014.

Slide show of installation photos (blog page)

Photo: G. Wilton & M. Bajko

Photo: G. Wilton & M. Bajko

Photo: G. Wilton & M. Bajko