Whangarei ShutterRoom

Mōrena koutou,

We are closed today, Wednesday 21st and tomorrow, 22nd of January due to the high chance of severe weather.

We want to keep our volunteers safe !

Take care everyone and stay dry !

We live our volunteers and we ARE our volunteers!

So many people keep this place alive, we had Pizza lunch this weekend to thank our wider team.

Such fun!

Here’s to many more years of doing cool photographic projects, and having fun with friends.

It's Christmas without the tree!

A few behind the scenes photos from the install of The Shutter Room Members Show 2025 - 2026.

HOME opening night!

Please join us for the opening of HOME The Shutter Room Members Show 2025 - 2026.

This Friday 5th December, 5 - 7pm.

Celebrate the work of The Shutter Room Members! The exhibition is a collection of works in response to the theme of HOME, curated by Chloé Mannix, this is one of our biggest group shows!

Many thanks to the install and curation team, Chloé Mannix, Jason Povey, and Angela Rowe.

Big congratulations to our members who have submitted work, we have a record number of new members and first time submissions for our Member's Show. Well done!

Thank you to our long time supporters and funders, Creative Northland, Whangarei DC, and Lotteries Grants Board.

Opening tomorrow night!

A Lovely Spot for a Cuppa – Chris Schreuder
7 – 29 November 2025
Opening: Friday, 7 November, 5:00 pm

Beaches, rivers, roadsides — quiet pauses in a life on the move.
In A Lovely Spot for a Cuppa, photographer Chris Schreuder transforms everyday landscapes into delicate studies of stillness and impermanence.

Each image is absorbed into the stained surface of a used teabag, merging image and object to explore memory, ritual, and the quiet passage of time. Suspended to move freely in the air, the works invite reflection on the fragile and transient nature of our daily moments.

Experience this contemplative exhibition at The Shutter Room, Old Library Building, Whangārei.

https://www.theshutterroom.com/exhibitions/a-lovely-spot-for-a-cuppa-ddrcg

Just talking about HOME

Saturday 18 October

11am-12pm @ the Shutter Room (please use the back entrance)

Open to all Shutter Room members + gold coin donation

Are you wanting to participate in our members exhibition called HOME?

Are you wanting to get together with other Shutter Room members to share ideas and discuss possibilities?

How does an hour of discussions and presentations to extend and shed light on this theme HOME sound?

> > > join us on Saturday18 October from 11am - 12pm to hear presentations about others who have made images around ideas of HOME

> > > followed by an open floor discussion

> > > ALSO hang around afterwards from 1-2pm if you have questions about sizing and formatting your images for print/display/exhibition

(Ellie Smith will use the Shutter Room computer and Photoshop to show you the easiest way to format your images correctly and give you a hand with your images if you bring them on a stick)

Our annual member's show (December 2025 - January 2026) is one way we aim to support you to get your work out there. There is no cost to submit and exhibit work, we cover the opening night food and drink, work can be for sale (no commission!) no pressure to fill the whole gallery!

We DO ask that works are ready to hang, and you must complete the online form, this makes it easy for us, avoids spelling errors, and helps us plan. Approach the theme creatively, with an open mind, and have some fun.

HOME
One or two new works
Due: 15 November 2025
Drop-offs: 22–28 Nov, Opening night: 5 December
Questions? Email us here: [email protected]

This annual show is a highlight of our calendar and we’d love you to be part of it.

Whether your take on home is tender, political, playful or abstract, we’re ready to see it.

Image credit:

Richard Kalvar Son watches television in the living room, mother has coffee in the kitchen. Suire family. Niort. France. 1997. © Richard Kalvar | Magnum Photos

Opening tonight! 5-7pm at The Shutter Room

Pioneers – Chris Brady | The Shutter Room, Whangārei

The Shutter Room presents Pioneers, a new exhibition by Chris Brady exploring what it means to be a pioneer today. Through sculpture, installation, and photography, the show contrasts human ambition with the quiet resilience of nature, highlighting weeds and wild plants that restore damaged landscapes. By examining these parallel stories of exploration, colonisation, and regeneration, Pioneers invites reflection on coexistence, sustainability, and the ways we might live and create in balance with the world around us.

Dates: 11 October – 1 November 2025

Light Catchers

Do you feel like playing with the lighting?

Light Catchers 2025 is ...once a month on a Saturday from 9.30-12.30 …using the Shutter Room Elinchrons and Aperture lighting systems ...non tutored but a studio photographer will be there to help

🫡 gold coin donation
🫡 for joined up members of the Shutter Room
🫡 bring a camera or phone

Next session….
Saturday 25 October
9.30-12.30 in the Shutter Room lighting studio (please use the back entrance)

Ellie Smith will be at the Shutter Room Saturday 25 October, just email her at [email protected] if you would like to come in and try something out in the studio.

Darkroom Days

This Saturday 11 October

Starting earlier at 9am

Have to be finished by 12pm

If you want to spend a couple of hours playing around in the darkroom this Saturday just email Ellie Smith at [email protected] to book a place

… you will need your own negatives, darkroom photo paper, a $10 koha (for chemicals)

… you don’t need to know anything OR you can have forgotten everything you ever knew about the darkroom OR you can know heaps and just need access to the gear