Craig Potton & Richard Young - 'Folio Box Sets' - Photospace Gallery, 7-15 August, 2026

Photo: Craig Potton from 'Moment & Memory'

In conjunction with Photobook NZ, Photospace Gallery is proud to present folio box sets by
Craig Potton and Richard Young. The exhibition runs from Friday 7th August to Saturday 15th August . 

Sunday opening  Sunday 9 August, 11am–2pm. Craig and Richard will be minding the gallery for the day.
Artist talk  Sunday 9 August, 11:30am. Craig and Richard talk about their work. Free entry.
Photospace gallery hours  10am–2pm Monday to Friday; 11am–2pm Saturday. Free entry
Also on during Photobook / NZ festival Craig and Richard will have the box sets on their table at the Photobook/NZ Bookfair — Saturday 8 August, 10am–4pm, The Wedge, Level 4, Te Papa, Wellington.

Craig Potton and Richard Young show their Folio Box Sets at Photospace Gallery as part of the New Zealand Photobook Festival — Craig's Moment & Memory alongside Richard's Silence. The two portfolios were first exhibited together at Craig Potton Gallery in Nelson in late 2025, and come to Wellington for the week of the festival.

In an era dominated by digital portfolios, the Folio Box Set revives the near-lost art of owning a complete, tactile collection of fine art prints. Pioneered by photographers like Ansel Adams and Eliot Porter, these sets offer a way to hold a body of work as a curated, collectible whole. Craig and Richard spent the past year refining every print and building the sets by hand — each showing their own, quite different interpretations of the New Zealand landscape.

'Silence Study #7' - photo: Richard Young

Richard's 'Silence' portfolio presents an alternative view of the New Zealand landscape — minimalist photographs that invite the viewer to listen, letting the silence speak in the space between objects and the voids surrounding them. View:  richardyoung.co.nz/silence-i

Craig's portfolio 'Moment and Memory' brings together a selection of his finest photographs, offering his own perspective on the New Zealand wilderness — from lush forest interiors to sweeping seascapes and mountains. Box set:  craigpottongallery.co.nz

With thanks to Epson for their support of this exhibition. Craig and Richard spent many hours together refining their folio prints and selecting the Epson papers to best show each other's work. All prints were made on the Epson SC-P906.

Below: photos of the boxed set 'Moment & Memory - Folio One' by Craig Potton

Below: photos of 'Silence' boxed set by Richard Young

Bio: Richard Young
Richard Young is a photographer based in Wānaka, New Zealand. His work is an expressive response to the natural world — a deliberate move away from the grand vista toward quieter, more interior encounters with the landscape. It is held in four collections: Silence I (New Zealand), Silence II (Hokkaido, Japan), Symphony, and Solitude.
Originally from Sussex, England, Richard grew up on a country estate in the South Downs, where an early connection with nature took root. He travelled to New Zealand in 2004 and made it his home, settling in Wānaka to live close to the landscapes he works within. Extended time in Japan, Antarctica and Scotland continues to shape the work.
His photographs have been recognised internationally — including NZ Geographic Photographer of the Year (Landscape and Wildlife, 2024) and awards from the International Photography Awards, the Fine Art Photography Awards and the ND Awards — and his prints are widely exhibited and held in private collections.
Every print is made by Richard himself, in his studio, on archival cotton rag — a level of control over the finished object he considers inseparable from the work. He works with Epson as their fine art printing ambassador, and with Nikon as an official Nikon Creator.

Artist statement - Silence:

This world is so busy, so hard to get away from the noise that we often avoid embracing any silence; acting a little uncomfortable by its presence. Even when it is found, we are easily distracted by the stress in our minds, just as nature’s purest complexity offers a subtle noise within the landscape. I have come to value quiet moments in nature; they allow me time to reconnect with the landscape and try to understand my relationship with it. I find silence in the space between the objects and the voids around them by listening to the landscape and letting the silence speak—before deciding if there’s anything to add to it.

These photographs are my rendition of nature, offering a quiet beauty to express the silence I found. Delicate deciduous trees sit connected to misty mountain peaks, below the long white cloud—offering a contemporary vision of Aotearoa. This non-classical interpretation of the New Zealand landscape tries to evoke a deeper response from the viewer by stripping out the emotional response that comes from an identifiable location. They invite you to consider how wonderful silence is, offering you a chance to escape from any noise in your everyday life. Viewing these prints reminds you to find those quiet spaces, encouraging you to head into nature for a walk and enjoy your own moments of silence.

Prints & Box sets
Richard's Silence Collection is printed to a limited edition of 45 prints; this edition is inclusive of all print sizes.
Folio Box sets 
Boxsets are priced at NZD $3,200 and offer a chance to own all 12 prints that form Richard’s Silence Collection. Production of the folio box sets has been limited to 25 box sets, to make allowance for the printing of larger prints within the same limited edition. Folio prints are sized at 385 x 329mm.
Large Prints
Each print in the collection is also available as a large limited edition print, sized at 700 x 610mm and priced at NZD $2,800.

Bio: Craig Potton
Craig Potton is one of New Zealand's best known landscape photographers and a committed conservationist. For more than four decades he has documented the New Zealand wilderness, exploring the relationship between artistic beauty and the natural world, and in pursuit of that work has tramped and climbed extensively across New Zealand, its sub-Antarctic islands, the Dry Valleys of Antarctica and the Nepal Himalaya. In 2013 he was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to photography and conservation. Pottonandburton
He founded Craig Potton Publishing in 1987, now Potton & Burton, and has published widely — New Zealand Aotearoa is among the country's best-selling pictorial titles, and Classic Walks of New Zealand, The Nature of Things, Moment and Memory, Offerings from Nepal and Here on Earth were each Montana New Zealand Book Award finalists. His work has been exhibited in New Zealand and internationally, including at the Christchurch Art Gallery, the National Gallery of Australia, the Rowe Gallery in North Carolina and the Luksfera Gallery in Warsaw. He also wrote and presented the television documentary series Rivers (2010) and Wild Coasts (2011).
Craig lives in Nelson, where he runs his gallery, and is an ambassador for the Royal Forest & Bird Protection Society.

MOMENT & MEMORY - Suite I, 12 Photographic Prints

The more I pondered a title for this series of New Zealand landscapes that I love, the more I came up against an enigma at the core of my photography. I feel like Timarchus, a young disciple of Socrates, who spoke of drinking simultaneously of the waters of memory and forgetfulness. All my life I have craved knowledge, continuity and coherence and yet have also desired to live freely in the sensuality of the moment. I try to accept the grace of a given moment and live in it and yet I also want to freeze it as a photo. Also for me, the act of photography is not only intuitive but equally informed by my knowledge and enjoyment of the art of others that have so powerfully affected me. Hence the title, Moment & Memory.
Many of these exclusive images are limited edition prints in larger sizes. After considerable thought I felt they could be offered in this small sized set thus making them more affordable and also protecting their exclusiveness. The portfolio itself is confined to 50 sets.