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.
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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.
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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.