We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Zenobia Southcombe. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Zenobia below.

Alright, Zenobia thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.

In 2020, just prior to the pandemic, I bought my first camera. The consequential lockdowns became an opportunity to learn and practice, and the only subject I really had available to me was my garden. Providing for wildlife and gardening sustainably were top of mind from the time we started our garden. But the more I photographed the plants and insects in my backyard, the more I valued them for their intrinsic beauty and character – not just their value to humans.
I had been sharing my photography on Instagram, and had some wonderful conversations with like-minded friends sharing our excitement when we discovered a new species in our backyards, or spotted the first butterfly of summer. Wanting to share this message with a wider audience, I committed to creating a photography exhibition.
I chose to focus on butterflies in my region and submitted a proposal to the Dunedin Botanic Gardens, who run an exhibition space for local artists. It took a lot of courage to send that email! Even after acceptance, I wondered whether I really was good enough to put on a decent show. For me, this exhibition was as much about butterflies & biodiversity as it was about personal courage.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My creative work really began as a young child, with a mother who taught us the skills of art, craft, and sewing. During highschool, I became deeply involved in visual art and applied myself diligently to improve my skills, though I did not yet know what I wanted to say. After a few years of generally ignoring my creative tendencies, I spent most of my twenties focused on a career as a chidren’s author, though I paid homage to my visual arts roots through the creation of colouring book art and a painting exhibition. But I felt like I was doing too many things, so heading into my thirties I burned out. Then, missing a creative outlet, I bought myself a camera.
It sounds like a cliche, but from the time I picked up that camera, I knew I’d found my medium.
Through photography, I discovered a latent passion for te taiao (the natural world) and the wildlife of my home, Aotearoa New Zealand. I learned about native butterflies that I didn’t know existed, about slugs that look like delicately-veined leaves, and moths that fly during the day.
My photography is now a tool to share this excitement, which I do through exhibitions, on social media (find me @dwindleriver) and through my wildlife newsletter, the Dwindle River Garden. Wildlife and nature reach beyond my photography and now influence my writing, my painting, and even the colouring pages that I make & sell in my Etsy shop. I love that I am able to use my skills and talent to foster love and appreciation for our beautiful world.

Have you ever had to pivot?

I used to live in Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland, the biggest city in Aotearoa. About five years ago, my husband and I moved to the South Island, eventually settling in a small, rural town. It took me a while to accept, but I realised most of my business success had relied on the opportunities that come with urban life: part-time jobs to support myself while building my career, writer meetups and artist friends, markets and fairs every month of the year, workshops and art classes, and groups in need of inspirational speakers. In our small town, these things simply didn’t exist in the kind of quantity needed to keep my business afloat. I was also losing the d rive I once had for writing and publishing fiction.
I am a little embarrassed at how long it took me to pivot, but for the first few years I felt stuck. I eventually closed my business, because I couldn’t see a solution that didn’t involve moving back to the city. This was untrue, of course, and I had a friend who lived down the road from me who was making a living from her art & illustration, so it was simply a stubborn negative-mindedness!
It was photography and a growing passion for nature that helped me pivot. What I love most about our rural home is the wildlife that come to visit our garden, and the wildlife I can go out and visit – we have seabirds, seals, and penguins on our doorstep. My love for these precious creatures must come through in my photography, because people seem to connect deeply with the characters I capture.
I shared my images on social media platforms (find me @dwindleriver), and held a joint exhibition with my artist friend Annemarie Jones. I eventually worked up the nerve to apply to the Dunedin Botanic Gardens for my first solo photography show, and then approached our local cafe to display my work for sale on their walls. I also created a wildlife photography calendar, which is now an annual offering.
And so my major pivot was shifting from fiction writing to wildlife photography, but I was still finding it hard to see this as a career. There are not many people who can make a living from nature photography alone! It was by chance that I came across paid newsletters as a product, but I immediately realised it would be a perfect intersection of my skills in writing and photography. As a result, my weekly newsletter on New Zealand garden wildlife the Dwindle River Garden, was born.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

I have had brief periods in my life when I was not creating, whether for hobby or for business, and have learned that creativity is essential to my life and health. But beyond making art for art’s sake, my work is now driven by a mission much bigger than myself, and it is this mission that keeps me going even when I feel blocked or uninspired.
I cannot help but feel a deep sense of wonder when I am nature. Whether I am watching a seal swim playfully amongst the kelp, or entertained by the over-zealous antics of a fantail (a little native New Zealand bird), or simply watching the colours shift at sunrise, I am in awe. I think that if everyone took some time out to really observe the inhabitants, the details, the colours, and the changes of the natural world then we would all look after it a little bit better.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://dwindleriver.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dwindleriver/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dwindleriver/
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@dwindleriver

Image Credits
Image puketapu_mark southcombe_crop is by Mark Southcombe; all other images were taken myself.