NZ Photographer's "Winery Doors" poster series takes off

Nelson & Marlborough Winery Doors Poster

"Winery Doors" photographer Renee Dale

One of the things that perplexes us here at NZ Fine Prints is the comparatively small number of photography posters and prints by NZ photographers that are for sale in the New Zealand art market and the generally lacklustre level of sales - apart from the top selling poster of NZ tramping huts! New Zealand's other top selling photographic posters are the iconic view of Auckland's One Tree Hill (before the loss of the lone pine) and Rangitoto Island by Paolo Koch but apart from posters by Nelson nature photographer Craig Potton there is not yet a large number of well known (what we sometimes call "brand name") NZ photographers whose work is popular in a fine art print or poster format. The interest in collecting historic and contemporay NZ fine art photography that has led to some astonishingly high prices at auction over recent years has not yet translated into sales of posters of work by NZ photographers.

Recently however a young NZ photographer called Renee Dale (pictured above left on location) has put together a series of winery door posters that are chalking up an impressively large numbers of sales with over 100 retailers now carrying her posters across Australasia.  Renee Dale's "Winery Doors" concept has taken her from her first poster of cellar doors in Hawkes Bay and Wairarapa, through Central Otago and Canterbury and she has just released her newest poster in the series, this time of wineries in Nelson and Marlborough (pictured above right). Dale has also completed posters in this series showing doors of wineries in the winegrowing regions of the US and Australia.  We have been amazed at the popularity of these posters after sending them all around the world over the past few months - we agree with the sentiments of a Hawkes Bay winery owner who told Renee recently that he had "bought a box and thought I would just see how they went.  Well, I was completely wrong to be worried.  The first 10 sold out within the first week or so, so I ordered another 2 boxes.  Then they sold out, and so on... People just love these cellar door posters...".  It's a great concept and we look forward to the next project from this enterprising young NZ photographer.