Cromwell Shepherd (Ngāpuhi) was possibly the first professional Māori photographer. He began photographing tourists and tourism sites whilst working as a guide at Rotomahana, Tarawera and the Buried Village during the early 1900s. By 1911, Shepherd had transitioned into photography fulltime, carrying out work for the government promoting tourist sites and documenting infrastructure projects, and running studios at Cambridge, Rotorua, and Auckland during the 1920s and 1930s.
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