Rob Tennent’s Ode to Male Friendship and Summer

Summer in New Zealand can be a special kind of magic; the days of long ocean swims, covered in sand and sea salt and fingers dripping with fish and chip grease. It’s a feeling that fuels Auckland-based photographer Rob Tennent’s latest book, I’m Going to Miss You – a tribute to this season, but also the beautiful boys that embody this feeling, Georgie Wright reports for UK fashion and culture magazine, i-D.

“I wanted to capture a whole range of different relationships we have with men,” Tennent says of the images. “Being queer, I wanted to explore that in my work, boys cuddling and kissing. If I saw that as a young kid, it would’ve helped normalise a whole bunch of things that I grew up thinking were wrong.”

I’m Going to Miss You was shot across summer 2020/21, just after Tennent had graduated from fashion school and emerged from a strict lockdown.

Cambodia-born Tennent is busy hatching plans to take off overseas soon, Wright reports, maybe somewhere in Europe where the architecture is an art form, and the Aperol flows like water. Then again, he believes a New Zealand summer is always worth coming back for.

Original article by Georgie Wright, i-D, September 28, 2021.

Photo by Rob Tennent.