About

Chris Burks is a Wellington-based commercial photographer and videographer, working across stills, video and drone for clients across New Zealand.

He's been shooting professionally since 1998, across a genuinely wide range of settings — studio effects built entirely in-camera, live events with no time to reset, and working environments like offices, shop floors and airports where the priority is staying out of people's way while they get on with their day. Different briefs call for different skills, but the job is always the same - read what the space and the people need, and get it done without fuss.

What that comes down to, job after job, is a mix of technical judgement and quick thinking. It's knowing how to read the light in a space and shape it to suit the shot, sensing the right moment to press the shutter rather than waiting to be told when, and directing people so they end up looking like themselves rather than posed. It's having the right gear for the situation and knowing how to use it without slowing anything down. That combination — technical control plus the instinct for what a moment needs — is still the part Chris finds most satisfying.