Picturesque journalist on tour of New Zealand

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33155, 20 February 1973, Page 15

Picturesque journalist on tour of New Zealand

(From Our Own Reporter) Timaru, Feb. 19. Wearing a bush-jacket, and a hat similar to that adopted by the New Zealand Rough Riders who fought in the South African War, and with three powerful cameras slung over his shoulders, Yuzi Shibata, a cameraman and travelling cultural expert and folk-craft scholar from Tokyo, made a brief stop at Timaru on Friday before proceeding to Mount Cook to photograph the scenic attractions there for his newspaper, “Ryoko Yomiuri.” The 35-year-old “ambassador extraordinary,” who teaches fine art and folk craft

at universities throughout Japan in his spare time, has already visited 88 countries. He has travelled extensively in the Republic of China, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and Australia — from where he acquired his distinctive blue hat with turned-up brim.

From Mount Cook, the global photographer-reporter will go to Queenstown and Milford, and visit the West Coast before returning to Christchurch. From Christchurch, he will go to the North Island, and leave Auckland on March 18 to sample the wealth of material to be captured on film in Fiji, Tonga, Tahiti. New Caledonia, and Samoa. Mr Shibata, whose newspaper publishes in the mornings and evenings, and which also carries a travel section, bears credentials from his editor to the effect that his trips in Asia and the South Pacific are for the express purpose of news gathering. Two of his three cameras are for colour photography. So far, he has used 180 rolls of colour film, and 40 rolls of black and white.

The diminutive roving reporter, almost weighed down Iwith his equipment, has obtained several unique badges, ■some of which are pinned to his hat, and a few shoulder patches characteristic of the countries he has visited, which add colour to his frontiersman’s jacket of skin, cloth, and narrow strips of leather.