Real work deserves real storytelling

Documentary-rooted commercial photography.
Built to make businesses look credible, consistent, and worth choosing.

Based in Canterbury. Working across the South Island (and beyond by request).

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  • We create documentary-rooted commercial photography built to do a job: make your business look credible, consistent, and worth choosing.

    Most clients come to us for:

    • Image library builds (web + Google + listings + socials)

    • Hospitality (food, drink, service, atmosphere, spaces)

    • Stays (interiors, flow, details, context, true-to-life colour)

    • Trades (capability, process, people at work, proof)

    • Goods (materials, texture, use, honest product stories)

    You’ll receive a set of images you can actually use — not a scattered mix that only works for Instagram.

  • Outcome first. Then the shot list.

    We keep sets calm and practical: minimal disruption, direction only when it helps.

    • Plan around your real workflow (service windows / site schedules / access)

    • Photograph what’s true — believable light, honest colour, real environments

    • Process over posing — craft, capability, atmosphere, proof

    • Finish clean — documentary feel with commercial discipline

    • Deliver organised — web + hi-res exports, sensible folders, predictable turnaround

    If it wouldn’t plausibly happen in your world, we don’t force it.

  • Kerosene is a strong fit for teams who want substance, not polish for its own sake.

    We work with:

    • Hospitality venues and producers

    • Accommodation and experiences

    • Trades and rural/industrial operators

    • Makers and product brands

    • Agencies and editorial teams

    Best fit: businesses that care about consistency, want a library that lasts, and are happy to be photographed doing the work for real — not performing for the camera.

Our Portfolio

Hospitality

Stays

Trades

Goods

Why Kerosene?

Most businesses don’t have a photo problem.

They have a trust problem.

In person, your work feels solid. Online, that often disappears — flattened into generic imagery, phone photos, or one-off shoots that don’t reflect how the business actually operates.

Kerosene creates documentary-rooted commercial photography so you look credible, consistent, and worth choosing. Not louder. Not trendier. Just clearer.

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