The nation’s eyes will be on Kurow this month, with three local women being profiled for a new television series.

Popular rural women’s magazine Shepherdess, has branched out onto our screens in a visual extension of their magazine, which highlights the diversity of females living in New Zealand’s small towns and farms. 

The Kurow episode features photographer Chloe Lodge, Awakino Station farmer and mother Jaz Mathisen, and long-time Plunket nurse Taieri Hore. 

Two episodes of the six-part series have already screened the last two Sundays nights on Freeview channel 15, Sky channel 4, and can also be seen on demand through Sky Go.

Before having seen them, Chloe said she understood the show to be “very much along the lines of Country Calendar”.

“But, instead of being about one place or one person, each episode is three people, and what they're doing is each episode is focused on a place.

“I believe their creative concept is that they're doing a week in the life of a place through the eyes of three rural women living and working and interacting, and friendships and community and all that sort of stuff.”

When the production team was “scouting around” earlier in the year to find three women to feature in Kurow, they already had Jaz lined up, and Chloe thinks her Britishness worked in her favour.

“Each [episode] they're focused on diversity. So whether that's ethnic diversity or whether that's age or whether that is job, or I think I sort of like came in and sort of ticked the box of, I don't want to say outsider, but a kind of, you know, foreign person making a home and connecting.

“I also, because I work for lots of companies locally and farms and that sort of thing, I connect those dots.”

The crew spent two-and-a-half days with each of the three women, and the show is very community-focused, Chloe said.

“It's really beautiful and it's very much about lifting the individual places and sharing from essentially, I guess, from the heart of the place, the heartbeat, which is often, dare I say, the women, you know, doing, pulling community together and all that sort of stuff.”

Chloe tried to elevate a number of aspects of the community while she was being filmed, to help put the spotlight on as many other groups and businesses as she could.

“I was like 'okay, you are filming me, but I actually want it to be more than that', because obviously I don't, you know, I'm not like 'put me on a pedestal'. I don't like that.”

She was hesitant when she was first asked to be part of the show, but thought it was an opportunity too good to turn down. 

“That stuff doesn't faze me that much. I guess also because of my job I'm around, you know, cameras.

“I was a little bit like, 'oh God, what am I going to look like' . . . and I just thought, you know what? This is an opportunity for the area, but also for me and my business. So just, yeah, do it.” 

The Kurow episode will screen on November 19.