Evan Tetreault came to New Zealand, took some photos, left.

Our trip to the Piha waterfall. All Photos/Evan Tetreault, www.evantetreault.com.

The title is pretty self-explanatory, really.

I first met Boston-based, half-French, half-British, American-born photographer Evan Tetreault last September in New York – friend of a friend of a friend type thing. We’d conversed via the internet before (yay! Internet!) but September was when we met IRL (In Real Life for those who don’t do internet speak). Maddy and James and Isaac and I spent a couple of days roaming around at New York Fashion Week with him, and by the time he had to leave we’d decided he should come and visit us in New Zealand.

Now here’s the thing – whenever I’m overseas I always tell people to come visit me in New Zealand, they always say they’ll come, but we both know that they won’t. It’s understandable – New Zealand is pretty far away from most countries. It’s a mission to get here. It’s expensive. That’s why I was surprised when Evan sent me a message to say he’d semi-spontaneously booked a ticket to come visit us for 8 days, a week and a half before he was due to arrive.

He got in on a Sunday at lunchtime, and from then on it was all go. We did a lot. You know how people don’t explore their own cities unless they’re showing someone around? Well, that was the case. We went up Mount Eden at sunset, had New Zealand fish and chips, took a trip out to the Piha waterfall, drove around Cornwall Park, shot a RUBY lookbook, introduced him to pies at The Fridge, purchased the requisite pineapple lumps and L&P for the drive down to Whangamata, ate lamb ribs and pulled pork rolls at Golden Dawn (he declared the lamb ‘the best ribs he’d ever eaten, ever’), swam in the rooftop pool at the Langham hotel and said ‘heaps’ a lot. He documented everything, and today he posted some of the photos he’d taken. I love them. (And not just because I’m in some of them – they are pretty incredible).

See some of my favourites below and the rest here. For regular photo updates, see Evan’s tumblr.

The view from Mt Eden.

Kitty Riddell (Red 11).

Alyssa Hiyama.

Chelsea Jade Metcalf, aka Watercolours, at One Tree Hill.

Alyssa Hiyama in a window in Ponsonby.

Me in Whangamata.

Evan likes sheep.