The Recent Auckland Photography exhibition is part of the Auckland Festival of Photography. It features 12 photographic artists; a number of New Zealand’s most renowned, alongside those who are mid-career or emerging.

It contains a range of works from the past 15 years, with the emphasis on the recent, and includes important early work, rarely exhibited works, and new, previously unseen works. The show and bookwork features twelve photographers each with a connection to the Auckland region, with the book being an extension of the exhibition with further background, more works, and texts on each artist.

In the catalogue each artist has a full page of text followed by representative examples of their work, while an introductory essay establishes the case for looking beyond the more easily recognisable aspects of subject matter to the different effects and feelings of the images themselves.

Chris Corson-Scott, who organized the show, says that:

Contemporary photography is to some degree only begrudgingly accepted by the “art world”. The condition seems to be that you have to be an artist who uses photography as an arbitrary means to other ends, without engaging in the medium itself. In practical terms the result is a lot of excruciatingly boring, deadpan, and ironic imagery of people or objects against black, white or grey backgrounds smack-bang in the centre of the frame. This is unfortunate because photographic exhibitions of the kind we are advocating, on the occasions they have been done, have been immensely popular.