Photos: The funniest, weirdest and most telling pics from the campaign trail

The campaign trail is a rather surreal and amusing place. It has a frenetic energy, but tempered with stretches of waiting around. As soon as the politician – the star of the show – appears, it's all on.

The media pack, party staffers and security merge into a beast all of its own, surging into spaces, imposing on them and disappearing from them almost as soon as they appeared.

Politicians potter around shops on walkabouts, pretending as though having several news cameras and a huddled throng following along is completely normal. At times, wannabe leaders subject themselves to activities that border on ritual humiliation.

Usually confined to rather sober days walking the halls of Parliament with binders in hand, suddenly the pollies take an interest in petting goats, inspecting welding bays, icing cakes or dancing with robots. It's all a dance – for the cameras, for the listening ears of reporters and most importantly, for the voting public.

None of it is at all normal but its a necessary ritual, and it does produce some pretty interesting moments. By no means do I purport to be an elite photographer – these are not examples of photography prowess, only moments in time – all part of a strange ritual that won't be repeated until 2026.

This is a quick snap I grabbed just as we arrived at a student flat in Dunedin, ominously christened the Love Shack. Chris Hipkins was due to visit, but retiring local Dunedin MP David Clark arrived ahead of his leader. The media pack were all rather excited – with some trepidation – about the state this Dunedin student flat might be in, but it had been fastidiously cleaned ahead of the visit.

This is what I mean about how surreal the campaign trail is. While what you may see on telly looks relatively normal – Hipkins sat in a lounge with the students, having a cupcake or two (his shout) – this is what it actually looks like. The room was absolutely rammed, I was stood in the kitchen taking this shot, a bottle of homemade florid yellow banana schnapps on a shelf there, which the residents had proudly pointed out to me. Taken on September 13, Hipkins appeared to mostly enjoy himself this day. It makes sense – all of his visits were centred around tertiary students, which as a former student politician and Education Minister, is well within his wheelhouse.

I spied the scrawl on this whiteboard and sensed a photo opportunity as National leader Christopher Luxon approached. It was at Hagley Windows and Doors in Christchurch, on a rather long tour of a factory which seemed to have Luxon rapt. I used a very secret technique to get this image – take a heck of a lot of shots and hope one of them is a winner. This is the shot that shows the exact moment he clocked the show of support from a nearby worker. He then had a chat with that worker, who seemed thrilled to meet the man who, as it turned out, will be the next prime minister of New Zealand.

Also at Hagley Windows and Doors – this just makes me laugh. I tried to tell Luxon the glass chopping board he had just been gifted was, in fact, upside down. But he didn't hear me so here we are.

This picture also gives you a good idea of just how intense that media scrum around a campaigning politician is. You can often hear plenty of people muttering about their presence – but they're the eyes and ears for the thousands of people not there. It's a real dance to be among the pack without getting run down though. Sometimes I liked to step away from it to get a wider angle or different perspective, like this one. The campaign trail is indeed, at times, a road leading to cheese.

This was at Riverside Market in Christchurch, a mainstay of the campaign trail for politicians of all stripes. It's also rather crammed in there at the best of times.

This is from just last week as Hipkins visited the All Blacks Experience at SkyCity. Closed to the public for his visit, he somewhat awkwardly – though more gamely than in the past – had a go at passing, kicking and agility activities at the attraction. He was gifted a personalised 2023 Rugby World Cup All Blacks jersey with his name on the back. This photo catches my eye though as it echoes images today of a triumphant Luxon emerging for a press conference from watching the All Blacks beat Ireland in an All Blacks jersey. Without a doubt Hipkins will have wished it was him, but that was not to be.

On the day of the National Party campaign bus launch, I found myself as the only remaining journalist on its leg from Auckland City to Tauranga. That gave me the unique experience of following former National leader Judith Collins on a walkabout through a shopping plaza in her home electorate of Papakura. She was clearly enjoying herself, ducking into every shop where she was greeted cheerily by almost everyone. If they didn't know her personally already, they knew of her and liked her.

Collins showed herself to be a hustler not just for herself but for those in neighbouring electorates – she would bale up a would-be voter and ask them what electorate they lived in. Depending on their response she would give them details for the local National candidate in each. No doubt she won some votes for Siva Kilari in Manurewa and Simon O'Connor in Tāmaki – even if those candidates were ultimately unsuccessful.

Perhaps I'm rather uninitiated to the world of welding, but this photo probably strikes most, like me, as rather odd and intriguing. At Otago Polytech, as prime minister, Hipkins opened He Toki Kai Te Rika. It's a new building aimed at training up people in trades and engineering. What he's peering into here is a welding booth, despite the abattoir-esque vibes.

Of all the days I followed Hipkins on the campaign trail this was one of his best. His supporters were fired up and so was he. Unusually, perhaps, Hipkins seemed to hit his stride campaigning after coming out of self-isolation due to testing positive for Covid-19. Here, at a walkabout in Waikanae, he got a real Waikanae welcome – including from this lady in lilac, who gifted him an orchid she grew herself. Although Hipkins was in high spirits on this day, this photo stands out as it kind of looks like he's had a bereavement. But of course, that's now with the knowledge now of what was to come.

This particular decal was at the back of National's campaign bus, where reporters sat, making it the short straw to sit there. There's nothing necessarily wrong with Luxon's gaze, except when it doesn't blink. He is always watching. Quite disturbing.

In a way, it's lucky Luxon has a new job lined up. Based on this pour at The White Swan in Greytown, he probably wouldn't be able to fall back on a bar-keeping gig.