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Stories
Visit page- One teacher’s journey towards building a class reading culture
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Professional development through online learning
Visit page- Learning about raising readers at Sylvia Park School
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Visit page- Di-Kun — Mrs Dawson, reading superhero
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- Sam — my Mum, reading superhero
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- Creating a reading community
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Visit page- A school reading community
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Visit page- Genres and forms in children's and young adult (YA) fiction
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Schools — how to support students' summer reading
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Visit page- Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
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Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
Visit page- Arrival and settlement of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand
- First encounters and early colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi | the Treaty of Waitangi — and its history
- Colonisation/immigration to Aotearoa and Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa | the NZ Wars
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1850 to 1950
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1950 to 2000
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific
- ‘Connected’ instructional series — resources
- Storybook app: Turikatuku — Te wahine taki wairua
- Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Services to Schools
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Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
Visit page- About Te Kupenga online
- Waka sail
- Drawn to te ao Māori
- Young emissaries
- Letter from Eruera
- Meeting Hongi Hika
- Another view of Waitangi
- Whaling in the bay
- Bird trade
- Moko of Kawepō
- Hākari
- Transition in Tahiti
- Eight-hour-day champion
- Signing the Treaty
- First New Zealand atlas
- Two Māori in Vienna
- He wahine toa
- He hononga tāngaengae
- Selling a farming dream
- ‘I shall not die’
- Wāhine Māori, whenua Māori
- Telegraphic tweets
- Actions at Parihaka
- Farm of the south
- He whakaahua rangatira
- A Moriori group
- Last of the laughing owls
- A taxing imposition
- Kiriki hori
- Peace on the waters
- Taking Māori to the world
- Digging for livelihoods
- Champion of women in medicine
- Collective might
- ‘It’s just hell here’
- Safe sex pioneer
- Sāmoa mō Sāmoa!
- The draw of Haining Street
- Aotearoa from the air
- Auswanderung
- A Japanese songbook
- Custom meets colonisation
- Health in body and mind
- Gift of fire
- Koroua, mokopuna
- Mean money
- From Tokelau to Wellington
- Whetu — style icon
- ‘Educate to Liberate’
- The dawn raids
- ‘Not one more acre’
- Toitū te whenua
- Cambodian journeys
- A volcanic career
- All-white All Blacks
- Halt the racist tour
- Going anti-nuclear
- Ngā taonga reo Māori
- New breath for ancient voices
- He kiriata nui: Māori on screen
- Somali Pacific star
- Colour, movement and music
- For generations to come
- We Are Beneficiaries
- Tools for primary source analysis
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
Tools for primary source analysis
Visit page- Explore a whakaahua | photo
- Explore a mahi toi | artwork
- Explore a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Explore a taputapu/taonga | object
- Explore a mahere | map
- Analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Analyse a mahere | map
- Critically analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Critically analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Critically analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Critically analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Critically analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Critically analyse a mahere | map
- Kohinga taunaki matua | A place to collect your evidence
- Using our primary source analysis tools in the classroom
- Social sciences topic starters for Years 0–3
- The New Zealand Wars
- Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
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Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
Visit page- Our service and what you can borrow
- How to borrow from us
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Visit page- Curiosity cards for inquiry
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- Teaching tools and resource guides
Curiosity cards for inquiry
Visit page- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Services to Schools
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- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
Visit page- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (CC0001)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (CC0002)
- The 'Crook Cook' statue (CC0003)
- Burning the forest (CC0004)
- A New Zealand 1951 fifty pound note (CC0005)
- Map drawn by Tuki te Terenui Whare Pirau (CC0006)
- 2017 Women’s March (CC0007)
- Te Rangitopeora (CC0008)
- The bicycle and women's suffrage (CC0009)
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (CC0010)
- Mere Ruiha Hakaraia/Mary Bevan’s signature on the 1893 Suffrage Petition (CC0011)
- Girls can do anything (CC0012)
- 1893 anti-suffrage cartoon (CC0013)
- Frances Parker’s Women’s Social and Political Union Medal for Valour (CC0014)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (CC0015)
- Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
- Services to Schools
- Teaching and learning resources
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
Visit page- Navigation (TMCC1)
- Waka hourua (TMCC2)
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (TMCC3)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (TMCC4)
- Matau rino (TMCC5)
- Whakapapa (TMCC6)
- 'Crook Cook' statue (TMCC7)
- Silver fern (TMCC8)
- Huia (TMCC9)
- Hāngi (TMCC10)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (TMCC11)
- Kahu kiwi (TMCC12)
- Hikoi (TMCC13)
- Whales (TMCC14)
- Dawn raids (TMCC15)
- Cross-cultural identity (TMCC16)
- Multiculturalism (TMCC17)
- Kauri dieback disease (TMCC18)
- Blank curiosity card template
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Visit page- Weeding your school library collection — video
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- School libraries: The heart of a reading culture at Hurupaki School
- Te whakahiratanga a nga whare pukapuka
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- Reading Together at Ohaeawai School
- Digital citizenship — managing your technology use
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- AnyQuestions: Helping New Zealand school students
- Fertile questions explained
- The power of visual material
- Ideas for exploring the nail owened by Te Horeta
- Using the '2017 Women's March' curiosity card
- Localising the curiosity cards templates
- Using the 'Crook Cook' curiosity card
- 'How is it activism to ride a bicycle?' Exploring the 'women cyclists' curiosity card
- Ideas for research activities to explore fertile questions
- Primary sources: The National Library of New Zealand collects, preserves and makes them available
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- The National Library of New Zealand collects the real stuff of history
- Researchers use primary sources to create new works
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Tuia Mātauranga
Visit page- Voyaging through Aotearoa New Zealand histories
- Services to Schools
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Voyaging through Aotearoa New Zealand histories
Visit page- Pacific Ocean
- Pacific navigation
- Pacific voyagers
- Waka hourua
- Early Polynesian arrivals
- Māori settlement and society
- Non-Māori explorers
- First encounters
- European settlement
- Treaty of Waitangi
- Post-Treaty of Waitangi
- Explore more: Resources, activities, AR app
- Resources and activities
- He Meka! He Meka!
- About Tuia Mātauranga
Aotearoa from the air
Whites Aviation aerial photographs are an important historical record. They capture Aotearoa New Zealand’s landscape and the growth of its town and cities. Find out more, and explore our collections and curated resources.
Read a story about Whites Aviation and their collection of photos
Already well known as an aerial photographer and aviation enthusiast, Leo White (1906–1967) established Whites Aviation in Auckland in 1945. The company published the monthly magazine Whites Aviation, as well as several editions of the popular Whites Pictorial Reference of New Zealand and many smaller one-off publications.
Whites Aviation photographs (pdf, 4.2MB) covered mainly towns throughout New Zealand, with some views of rural areas and scenic hotspots. Smaller towns may have been covered only once or twice, while larger towns and cities — particularly Auckland and its surrounds — were covered multiple times from the 1940s to the 1980s. The 1950s and 1960s were particularly productive, with Whites undertaking extensive photography all around New Zealand, although the last time any part of the South Island was photographed appears to have been in 1974. Unlike government-contracted New Zealand Aerial Mapping, Whites Aviation had no mandate to cover the entirety of New Zealand, so presumably it focused on what would be of greatest interest and commercial value to the company.
Whites Aviation was also employed by various authorities and companies to take aerial photographs. As a result, an extensive range of images — motorways under construction, forestry plantations, new subdivisions and the like — formed part of its stock.
After the death of Leo White, the company went through several changes of ownership, eventually ending up with GeoSmart. In 2007, GeoSmart decided to move away from aerial photography and offered the Whites Aviation archive to the Turnbull Library. The library bought not only the collection of about 80,000 negatives and 55,000 prints, along with the negative registers, but also the copyright to these images. Among them was a large collection of photos taken by Leo White himself from 1921 onwards, including those from his days as a freelance photographer.
The negative from which the image of the company’s office was taken shows early signs of so-called vinegar syndrome, in which the acetate backing has begun to shrink, causing the negative to wrinkle, often to the point where the image can no longer be seen. The Turnbull’s conservation team can make these images viewable by removing the backing, but this is a slow and painstaking process and is done only as required. Environmental conditions in the library ensure the negatives will not deteriorate any further.
Story written by: Jenni Chrisstoffels
Copyright: Turnbull Endowment Trust
Whites Aviation staff in their studio
Find out more
Read a connected story from Te Kupenga: First New Zealand atlas.
Explore the Alexander Turnbull Library collections further:
National Library blog has this post also written by Jenni Chrisstoffels: Not just aerial photographs.
Topic Explorer has History of New Zealand film and photography.
Many Answers has History New Zealand.
Papers Past has Whites Aviation.
Want to share, print or reuse one of our images? Read the guidelines for reusing Alexander Turnbull Library images.
Curriculum links
Te Marautanga o Aotearoa
Tikanga ā-iwi:
Te whakaritenga pāpori me te ahurea
Te ao hurihuri
Te wāhi me te taiao.
Te Takanga o Te Wā (ngā hītori o Aotearoa):
Whakapapa
Tūrangawaewae.
New Zealand Curriculum
Social sciences concepts:
Identity, culture, and organisation
Place and environment
Continuity and change.
Aotearoa New Zealand's histories:
Colonisation and its consequences
Relationships and connections between people.
- Resources for learning
- Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
- Arrival and settlement of Māori in Aotearoa New Zealand
- First encounters and early colonial history of Aotearoa New Zealand
- Te Tiriti o Waitangi | the Treaty of Waitangi — and its history
- Colonisation/immigration to Aotearoa and Ngā Pakanga o Aotearoa | the NZ Wars
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1850 to 1950
- Aotearoa New Zealand from 1950 to 2000
- Aotearoa New Zealand’s relationship with the Pacific
- ‘Connected’ instructional series — resources
- Storybook app: Turikatuku — Te wahine taki wairua
- Resources for teaching Aotearoa NZ histories topics
- Te Kupenga: Stories of Aotearoa New Zealand
- About Te Kupenga online
- Waka sail
- Drawn to te ao Māori
- Young emissaries
- Letter from Eruera
- Meeting Hongi Hika
- Another view of Waitangi
- Whaling in the bay
- Bird trade
- Moko of Kawepō
- Hākari
- Transition in Tahiti
- Eight-hour-day champion
- Signing the Treaty
- First New Zealand atlas
- Two Māori in Vienna
- He wahine toa
- He hononga tāngaengae
- Selling a farming dream
- ‘I shall not die’
- Wāhine Māori, whenua Māori
- Telegraphic tweets
- Actions at Parihaka
- Farm of the south
- He whakaahua rangatira
- A Moriori group
- Last of the laughing owls
- A taxing imposition
- Kiriki hori
- Peace on the waters
- Taking Māori to the world
- Digging for livelihoods
- Champion of women in medicine
- Collective might
- ‘It’s just hell here’
- Safe sex pioneer
- Sāmoa mō Sāmoa!
- The draw of Haining Street
- Aotearoa from the air
- Auswanderung
- A Japanese songbook
- Custom meets colonisation
- Health in body and mind
- Gift of fire
- Koroua, mokopuna
- Mean money
- From Tokelau to Wellington
- Whetu — style icon
- ‘Educate to Liberate’
- The dawn raids
- ‘Not one more acre’
- Toitū te whenua
- Cambodian journeys
- A volcanic career
- All-white All Blacks
- Halt the racist tour
- Going anti-nuclear
- Ngā taonga reo Māori
- New breath for ancient voices
- He kiriata nui: Māori on screen
- Somali Pacific star
- Colour, movement and music
- For generations to come
- We Are Beneficiaries
- Tools for primary source analysis
- Explore a whakaahua | photo
- Explore a mahi toi | artwork
- Explore a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Explore a taputapu/taonga | object
- Explore a mahere | map
- Analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Analyse a mahere | map
- Critically analyse a whakaahua | photo
- Critically analyse a mahi toi | artwork
- Critically analyse a tuhinga tawhito | unpublished document
- Critically analyse a tuhinga whakaputa | published document
- Critically analyse a taputapu/taonga | object
- Critically analyse a mahere | map
- Kohinga taunaki matua | A place to collect your evidence
- Using our primary source analysis tools in the classroom
- Social sciences topic starters for Years 0–3
- The New Zealand Wars
- Audiobooks and eBooks for students with dyslexia or other print disability
- Teaching tools and resource guides
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (CC0001)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (CC0002)
- The 'Crook Cook' statue (CC0003)
- Burning the forest (CC0004)
- A New Zealand 1951 fifty pound note (CC0005)
- Map drawn by Tuki te Terenui Whare Pirau (CC0006)
- 2017 Women’s March (CC0007)
- Te Rangitopeora (CC0008)
- The bicycle and women's suffrage (CC0009)
- Meri Te Tai Mangakāhia (CC0010)
- Mere Ruiha Hakaraia/Mary Bevan’s signature on the 1893 Suffrage Petition (CC0011)
- Girls can do anything (CC0012)
- 1893 anti-suffrage cartoon (CC0013)
- Frances Parker’s Women’s Social and Political Union Medal for Valour (CC0014)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (CC0015)
- Set 2: Tuia Mātauranga
- Navigation (TMCC1)
- Waka hourua (TMCC2)
- Māori bartering with Joseph Banks (TMCC3)
- Nail owned by Te Horeta (TMCC4)
- Matau rino (TMCC5)
- Whakapapa (TMCC6)
- 'Crook Cook' statue (TMCC7)
- Silver fern (TMCC8)
- Huia (TMCC9)
- Hāngi (TMCC10)
- Mt Cook School in Wellington (TMCC11)
- Kahu kiwi (TMCC12)
- Hikoi (TMCC13)
- Whales (TMCC14)
- Dawn raids (TMCC15)
- Cross-cultural identity (TMCC16)
- Multiculturalism (TMCC17)
- Kauri dieback disease (TMCC18)
- Blank curiosity card template
- Set 1: He Tohu and Tuia — Encounters 250
- Fertile questions
- Primary sources — how to use them
- Inquiry exemplars and templates
- Guides for exploring children's and YA literature
- Explore He Tohu with your students
- World War 1 (WW1) resources
- Topic Explorer guide
- EPIC guide
- AnyQuestions guide
- DigitalNZ guide
- Papers Past guide
- Index New Zealand (INNZ) guide
- Curiosity cards for inquiry
- Videos