Five years on: photographers capture Christchurch

Ashton and Jack Fisher, with solo-mum Rebecca Gane, looking through a photo album featuring their dad, Adam Fisher, who passed away in the PGC building on February 22, 2011 — 10 days before Ashton was born and when Jack was three years old.  Ashton was diagnosed with Leukaemia last year.

Diners enjoying lunch in New Regent Street, five years on from the February 22, 2011 earthquake.

Chess players in the Christchurch Square on the five-year anniversary of the Christchurch earthquake

Self-portrait at 9 Liverpool St; Goodenough Residence.

“I was operating from a two-story Art Deco warehouse, which I renovated over two years, moving in 2004 close to Christchurch’s city centre, where I also lived with my family, until the earthquakes in February 2011. The ground floor was my photography studio and the first floor was our home. My children went to school in the CBD above the old bus exchange in the building that was once Arthur Barnett’s department store. [We were] never able to return to our building although it survived the earthquakes with no structural damage, it was taken by the crown and demolished mid 2014 as they wanted the land for future development for apartments so families could move in to the city, which is still cutting for us.”

Flowers decorating road cones in remembrance of the February 22 earthquake in Christchurch.

Marian College students at lunch, February 22, 2016, with the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament (Catholic Cathedral) behind in ruins.

Positivity, even though progress is slow. Comments on fencing from girls from Marian College High School.

Ali Scott is a coach who has worked extensively with people suffering from the Canterbury Earthquakes, helping their recovery through NLP. She is now focused on the future for her son, Oscar, who has Down Syndrome. Every aftershock scares him. She is fundraising to get him to the Feuerstein Therapy Centre in Jerusalem; Israel.

Remembering the 185 empty white chairs.

Children running in front of their new school rooms at Prebbleton School.

Debbie Albrecht, owner of a beautiful shop called So You. Debbie spent several years post-quake in a temporary mobile shop on Rangiora’s High Street. Last year she moved into a new location on a brand-new street in Rangiora called Conway Lane, which has added a new life to the centre of Rangiora.

What was once the Newstalk ZB building, is now covered in grass.

River of flowers — Avonside Girls High School and members of the community commemorating the five-year anniversary of the February 22 earthquake.

Leigh Davidson viewing the old Commerce building at exactly 12.51pm on the five-year anniversary of the February quake. Leigh was working in this building on the day of the quake.

12.51pm at the University of Canterbury

Remembrance service at Hagley Park

Staff of Cassels & Sons, Little One, Aromaunga Flowers, and other retailers pause for a moment at 12:51pm at The Tannery Atrium in Woolston to reflect on the events of five years ago, while shoppers browse the unique shopping precinct that has popped up post-quake — a hub of creativity and hospitality, retail and craft.

“It’s a hard one. I wish me and my friend weren’t in the CBD that day. It made me who I am today though — little did I know I had Charlotte growing inside me at that time. Before that day I was a self-destructive person that didn’t care about a thing. Now I care about everything,” says Rochelle Bell, pictured with her daughter outside the CPIT where she now studies.

Remembering at the PGC site.

“We can’t help but notice all the positiveness around the city, and our favourite parts of the city have been the gap fillers and colourful murals. We are already planning on coming back to Christchurch in a few years to see all the beautiful changes of this city,” says Mike and Lesley from the UK. 

Sophie Cawood, year 13 at St Margaret’s College, standing in the new chapel/auditorium at the school. Sophie was in year 9 in 2011 and has experienced first-hand the changing face of the school since February 22, 2011. Nearly every building in the school has been demolished and rebuilt in the last five years. After the demolishing of the school’s chapel, services and assemblies were held in a marquee. Now the school has fabulous new facilities, a new chapel, and the grass fields once covered in temporary prefab classrooms have now been restored. The sound of heavy machinery is no longer background noise to every lesson. Sophie travelled to Nepal last year with a group of students from the school and was once again caught in the terror of a tragic earthquake, which crippled the people of Nepal.