Observations of a Rural Nurse

 A unique photographic portrait of the King Country. Sara McIntyre, the daughter of the artist Peter McIntyre, was nine years old when her family first came to Kakahi, in the King Country, in 1960. The family has been linked to Kakahi ever since. On the family car trips of her childhood, McIntyre got used to her father’s frequent stops for subject matter for painting. Fifty years on, when she moved to Kakahi to work as a district nurse, she began to do the same on her rounds, as a photographer. This book brings together her remarkable photographic exploration ― her ‘observations’ ― of Kakahi and the sparsely populated surrounding King Country towns of Manunui, Ohura, Ongarue, Piriaka, Owhango and Taumarunui.

Sara McIntyre was born in Wellington and worked as a neonatal intensive care nurse for several years. In 2010 she moved to Kakahi in the King Country, where she had been visiting with her family since 1960. While working as a district nurse, based at Taumarunui Hospital, she had the opportunity to further explore the area as a photographer. This led to her first solo exhibition at the Anna Miles Gallery in 2016. The Sarjeant Gallery, Whanganui, will exhibit her work in May 2020.