A showcase of work made by Larence Shustak before he left the United States in 1973 to establish the photography department at the School of Fine Arts in Christchurch. He was part of an early ferment on the East Coast, of the emerging awareness of the medium as an independent tool of art, self-expression and social engagement, existing outside the mainstream picture magazines and commercial studios.

The selection samples his early experiments, commissions and personal projects, reflecting a time in transition seen through one pair of eyes: from more traditional street studies, graffiti and lively New York jazz recording scenes, and a serious documentary study of a Harlem-based Ethiopian Hebrew synagogue, the subject matter then evolved into happenings and the hippie culture.