3 Oct 2024

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If you’ve got interesting old photos tucked away in your cupboard, left on a digital camera SD card or stashed on your phone – now’s the time to dig them out.

The annual Christchurch City Libraries’ Photo Hunt is underway for 2024, running until 31 October.

The event aims to digitally gather photographs from across the community alongside the Christchurch Heritage Festival which opens on October 12.

This year’s theme is Active Heritage – Sport, Recreation and Leisure. 

“The Photo Hunt gives people the chance to share some of their precious memories and highlight key moments in our city’s history, each photo comes with its own unique story,” Head of Libraries and Information Carolyn Robertson said.

“We’ve held the event every year since 2008 and it’s a wonderful way to help with our goal of creating a photographic archive of the life and times of Ōtautahi-Christchurch and Te Pātaka o Rākaihautū-Banks Peninsula.”

The 2023 overall winner New beginnings in NZ features a sun-drenched Dutch migrant leaning against a doorframe in 1950s Christchurch.

The judges said: “This well composed photograph gives us an insight into the life of a Dutch migrant who has arrived in 1950s Christchurch. After having lived through the horrors of the Second World War, she looks relaxed and happy while standing casually in the doorframe holding a cigarette in her hand.”

“The presence of the bicycle, a common form of transport in both the Netherlands and Christchurch in the 1950s, shows that she is maintaining a connection to her former life while learning to live in a new country.”

Submitted photos will be highlighted on the Discovery Wall at Tūranga, the mobile Discovery wall, as well as on our digital heritage repository Canterbury Stories.

There are drop-in digitisation events running at Tūranga, Matatiki Hornby Centre, New Brighton Library and Ōrauwhata Bishopdale Library as part of the 2024 Photo Hunt.

The 2024 prizes are:

• $100 Riverside Market vouchers for the overall winner

• $50 Riverside Market vouchers for the people category winner

• $50 Riverside Market vouchers for the places category winner

Find all the details of the Christchurch Photo Hunt and upload your photos here.

Image: New beginnings in NZ, 1954. Christchurch City Libraries, CCL-PH23-DW-166331, Georgina Ward, CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0.