I’m John Caswell, a Dunedin-based photographer, writer and blogger, and I’ve spent most of my life living in and around this small city at the bottom of New Zealand.

From a Small City began with a fairly simple idea: you don’t have to travel to the other side of the world to find somewhere interesting. Sometimes you just need to take the next turn, drive a little further down the road, or stop in a town you’ve driven through a dozen times without ever getting out of the car.

That’s what I like doing.

I travel from Dunedin exploring small towns, forgotten points of interest, old buildings, curious bits of history and the places that don’t necessarily make it into the tourist brochures. Some are beautiful, some are slightly strange, some are almost forgotten, and occasionally I arrive somewhere and wonder why I bothered. Those are all part of the journey.

A photographer who writes

Photography came first.

I’ve always been interested in the way a photograph can make you stop and look at something you might otherwise have walked straight past. I’m drawn to empty spaces, old buildings, landscapes, architecture and the traces people leave behind. Sometimes it’s the grand view that catches my attention. More often, it’s something much smaller.

A building at the end of a street. An old sign. A weathered cottage. A railway line disappearing into the distance. A town that seems to have been left behind by the rest of the country. But a photograph can only tell you so much. That’s where the writing comes in.

Behind many of the photographs I take is a story, and I enjoy finding out what that story is. Who built the building? Why did the town appear here? What happened to the people who once lived there? Why is there a monument in the middle of nowhere? And how did a tiny Central Otago pub end up with a ghost called Rosie?

Sometimes the answers are straightforward. Sometimes they’re buried in old newspapers, local histories and archives. And sometimes the story has become so tangled over the years that working out what actually happened becomes part of the story itself.

From a Small City

The name is deliberate.

Dunedin isn’t Auckland, Sydney or London. It’s a relatively small city, tucked away at the bottom of New Zealand, and that’s where I begin most of my journeys. I like that.

Being based in a small city gives me a slightly different perspective on travel. I’m not starting from a major international hub and constantly looking for the next exotic destination. I’m starting from home and heading out into the country around me.

That might mean a weekend in Central Otago, a wander around an old gold-mining settlement, a drive through the Maniototo on a freezing winter morning, or a detour because something on the roadside looks interesting. The destinations aren’t always famous. That’s partly the point.

I’m interested in the places between the big attractions, the towns people pass through without stopping, and the little pieces of New Zealand that can disappear surprisingly quickly if nobody bothers to remember them.

Looking for the overlooked

I’ve always had a weakness for places with a story.

Small towns are particularly good at providing them. A main street might look quiet now, but fifty, a hundred or a hundred and fifty years ago it could have been full of miners, shopkeepers, travellers, hotels, blacksmiths and people doing their best to make a living at the edge of the country. The remains are often still there if you know where to look. Sometimes it’s an old building. Sometimes it’s a cemetery, a railway platform, a road that once mattered far more than it does today, or simply a name on a sign. And sometimes it’s something completely unexpected.

Those are the discoveries I enjoy most.

Dunedin is home

Although I travel around New Zealand, Dunedin remains the starting point.

I’ve lived here for most of my life, and despite knowing the city pretty well, I still find myself photographing places I’ve walked past countless times. The city, harbour, hills, beaches and Otago Peninsula provide an endless supply of things to look at, particularly when you slow down enough to notice them. That’s probably what photography has taught me more than anything else: to look a little longer. There is usually something interesting hiding in an ordinary place.

The bigger journey

From a Small City has gradually grown into more than a collection of daily photographs.

The stories I’m writing are becoming part of a larger project, The Forgotten Country: Travels in Small Town New Zealand, exploring the places, people, history and peculiarities that make up the less obvious side of the country. It’s a journey that is still being written. There are towns I haven’t visited, roads I haven’t travelled, buildings I haven’t photographed and plenty of stories I haven’t discovered yet. Which is rather convenient.

It gives me an excuse to keep wandering.

Come along

So that’s what from a Small City is about.

Photography, travel, history, small towns, forgotten places and the occasional completely unnecessary detour. I’m interested in the New Zealand you find when you slow down, look around and take the road that wasn’t necessarily on the itinerary. I’ll keep heading out from Dunedin, camera in hand, and see what turns up.

You never quite know what you’ll find around the next corner.