About
Gisborne Photo News was a monthly publication 3rd June 1954 – 5th November 1975.
Beginnings
The Logan Publishing Company began at Robert (Bob) Logan’s residence in Gisborne, New Zealand June 1954. Bob’s eldest son John remembers doing the monthly delivery of Gisborne Photo News to dairies and bookshops around town and seeing people eagerly waiting outside for their copy.
In the first issue Bob said:
“Our aims and objects are brief. They are, above all else, to interest and entertain our readers with news of Gisborne in words and pictures. From day to day our cameras will be recording the contemporary scene in Gisborne and district”
What the Photo News roving reporters wouldn’t go to probably wasn’t worth knowing about; they went to everything from birthdays, engagements and 21sts, to Boy Scout excursions and mother-daughter badminton mornings — nothing was considered irrelevant. They even went to the opening of a fridge when it was gifted to a local children’s home.
“It was the life of Gisborne and really the only place it was recorded photographically,” says John Logan. “A lot of this was before photographs were in the newspaper. That’s why it was so successful because local photos were virtually unseen.”
Circulation peaked at 8000 — this meant a copy of the Photo News ended up in almost every local household.
Logan Publishing Ltd also produced similar magazines for other towns around New Zealand which belonged to his franchise — Whangarei, Tauranga, Rotorua, Taranaki, Wanganui and Nelson. They also printed editions for Waikato, Thames-Paeroa-Matamata and Franklin.
Images and text on this website
Gisborne District Council is unaware of any restrictions on the use of the images and text presented in this archive. The digital reproductions of all images and text in this archive are made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 New Zealand license.
To use images or to order high resolution images contact staff at H B Williams Memorial Library
The library acknowledges and appreciates copyright owners who have given kind permission for reproduction of their material. Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. We would be pleased to hear from photographers we have been unable to trace. Please contact staff at the library.
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