Troppo: Capturing the Narrative—The Garden Ramble in Focus

The Te Puke Coast Lions Garden Ramble 2025 was an absolute feast for the eyes and a storytelling opportunity we couldn’t miss. Running across Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, the event provided a curated portfolio of visual narratives, from the grand landscape to the minute detail. As a creative and digital studio, Troppo was proud to lead the photographic and videographic documentation, ensuring the ephemeral beauty of the Ramble was translated into enduring, high-impact digital content.

This initiative was a collective effort by the Vector Group Charitable Trust, where we joined forces with Te Puke Digital, Kiwifruit Capital, Grow Te Puke, and the Kai Resilience Co-op to provide full visual coverage of the three-day Ramble.

The Visual Narrative: Gardens of Distinction

The gardens themselves were incredible subjects for our lens, each offering a distinct aesthetic mood. The “Coastal Sanctuary” was a study in structure and light. Our cameras captured the dramatic interplay between the resilient, dark-foliaged native plants, like mature Pōhutukawa, and the bright, shifting light off the coast. The wooden boardwalks acted as leading lines, guiding the viewer through a narrative of ecological restoration and architectural landscaping—perfect for compelling videography.

The “Artisan’s Potager” provided a vivid contrast, offering a painterly composition. The deep textures and saturated colours of the heirloom vegetables—the purples of the kale, the reds of the beans—juxtaposed beautifully against the formality of the layout. The visual story here was one of human artistry applied to nature, with the precise, repetitive patterns of the espalier fruit trees providing excellent depth and perspective for photography.

Meanwhile, “The Tropical Escape” was a textural riot. The dense layering of palms, bromeliads, and exotic flowering plants created a shallow depth-of-field dreamscape. Our focus was on capturing the luminous quality of the light filtering through the dense canopy and the reflective surfaces of the water features, creating a lush, serene visual experience that transports the digital viewer.

Digital Legacy: Full Coverage, Friday to Sunday

The Vector Group Charitable Trust’s commitment to the Ramble was a commitment to high-quality visual legacy. Our entire team was deployed from Friday morning through Sunday evening, using professional equipment to capture the entire event.

Through extensive photography and high-definition videography, we captured not just the flowers, but the emotion, the community engagement, and the spirit of the weekend. This wealth of digital assets now serves as a powerful visual archive. For Troppo, this project was a perfect opportunity to demonstrate how strategic, professional documentation can amplify the reach and impact of a community event, turning temporary beauty into a permanent, accessible digital asset for the Te Puke Coast Lions Club’s future promotional and fundraising efforts.

View the full visual archive and detailed report on this collaborative documentation project on the Vector Group Charitable Trust website. https://www.vectorgroup.org.nz/community-engagement/a-unified-vision-documenting-the-te-puke-coast-lions-garden-ramble-2025/