A chance encounter with a travelling photographer changed the course of young Charles Bayliss’s life in 1866. He was sixteen years old and living in suburban Melbourne when Beaufoy Merlin knocked on the door and asked to photograph the family home. The entrepreneurial Merlin had started a business documenting the buildings and houses of the […]
Greg Weight (1946- ) has been photographing artists since he joined Martin Sharp, Brett Whiteley, George Gittoes, and Peter Kingston at the artist-run Yellow House in Sydney in 1970. There, he met people who fascinated him for the ways in which they interpreted ‘the mystery and phenomena of the real world.’ For Weight, taking photographs […]
In the 1890s, it was fashionable for well-to-do gentlemen to experiment with photography. It took someone with both time and money to be a successful amateur photographer and James C. Wilson (1834-1901) certainly fit the bill. Born in Ireland, Wilson emigrated to Australia in 1857 and quickly rose to prominence as the first mayor and […]
As the house lights dimmed, the boisterous chatter of the capacity crowd that packed the Maitland Town Hall on 6 August 1929, reduced to a hush. It was the opening night of the Maitland Musical and Operatic Society production of Going Up, and young Una Heslop, a member of the chorus, was waiting in the […]
Measuring a little over one metre tall this photographic portrait is of Charles Rasp (1846-1907), the man credited with finding silver at Broken Hill and establishing the now British-owned mining company BHP (Broken Hill Proprietary Company) in 1885. For decades the settler population at Broken Hill has celebrated Rasp as the city’s ‘founding father’, including […]
Herbie Watkins heard rumblings below ground that made him run for his life. It was 5.15 am on 7 December 1910 and he was alone on site maintaining the temporarily closed West Wallsend-Killingworth Colliery. Luckily, Watkins was at a safe distance when the catastrophic explosion punctured the early morning silence, waking residents of the surrounding […]
Aboriginal Police Tracker ‘Tommy’ worked in Broken Hill from the late 1890s-1910. His employment and skill as a tracker was renowned and widely reported in the press. Tommy’s police work also saw him employed at the Silverton Police Station, along with other Aboriginal trackers. Moreover, his time at Broken Hill coincided with a craze for […]
Although James Wooler (1872-1944) resided in Broken Hill for only a few years his photographs transformed how the world saw its people. His work for The Barrier Miner put the newspaper at the cutting edge of mass media, surpassing The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald’s ability to illustrate articles. His photographic legacy is a […]
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