Bill Hocker, Traveller and Photographer

I have Tewfic El-Sawy's Feedblitz mails arrive in my inbox because he regularly posts news of superb photographers.

Today he posted about Bill Hocker. He wrote: I consider Bill Hocker to be one of the quintessential travel photographers. An insatiable globetrotter, he traveled (and still does) all over the planet to satisfy his passion for photography and his interest in new cultures. He is not a professional photographer, but is passionate about his avocation and makes no bones about it.

I wandered over to Bill's photography website and noticed he had a New Zealand album. I read what he'd written and found him delightful.

I mean, who could resist having their native land written up in this way: Not unlike my California, New Zealand is a place of natural wonders, yet with a tenth the disfigurements and annoyances of human occupation. Half of the population lives in Auckland. Beyond are 104,000 square miles of pristine landscapes linked by 2-lane roads.

It is a man's world of sailing and ranching and clear-cut forestry, an outdoor mecca for hunters, fishermen, trampers and kayakers. It had a whiff of utopia about it, all fitness and sustainability, resolved harmony between colonist and native, a self-contained and defensible place where the pitfalls of human society can, in fact, be overcome. Or was it just my imagination?