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SHADES OF LIGHT Based on text from the original book: Shades of Light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988 Gael Newton, 1988 Australian National Gallery   Chapter 3    Footnotes return to Chapter 3      next chapter     contents   Reported in 'The Fine Arts' Sydney Morning Herald, 7 February 1856. However, the Herald was firmly in favour of collodiotype portraits. See also M.E.A., p.24, for notes on the introduction of the collodion process. For an examination of the relationship between photography and illustration, see Peter Quartermaine "'Speaking to the Eye": Painting, Photography and the Popular illustrated Press in Australia, 1850-1900', in Anthony Bradley and Terry Smith, eds, Australian Art and Architecture: Essays Presented to Bernard Smith, (Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 1980) pp.54-70, 237-8. Held by the Battye Library of Western Australia. The pictorial department of the library maintains an index to other private and public photographic collections in the State. A fine portrait of Governorj.S. Roe and family, held by the Battye, may be by Evans (see David Moore and Rodney Hall). Australia: Image of a Nation, 1850-1950 (Sydney: William Collins 1983), p.30. What little is known of photography in Western Australia has been published by Ann Pheloung in Joan Kerr, ed., Dictionary of Australian Artists. Working Paper L Painters, Photographers and Engravers 1770-18 70 A-H (Sydney: Power Institute of Fine Arts, University of Sydney, 1984). Reproduced in M.E.A., p.19 for information on Glaister and the introduction to Australia of stereoscopic photography. Colonial Times, 2 December 1852. Kilburn's career in Tasmania is dealt with at length in Chris Long, Tasmania, the First Photographs 1840-60 (ms. held by Chris Long). See Therese Thau Heyman, Mirrorof California: Daguerreotypes (Oakland, California: The Oakland Museum, 1974), pp.8-9. The lithographs are quite common (examples are held by the National Library of Australia). Fox's original photographs are rare. A copy of his -album is held in a private collection. This image of a family group c. 1856, is reproduced in M.E.A., p.20. Letter no. 3, to his family. Transcript by John Wilson, Reading University, no. 489/1, provided by the Royal Photographic Society, Bath (held in Australian National Gallery artists' files). Other Woodbury letters are held on microfilm (untranscribed), by the National Library of Australia. The Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 21 (London: Oxford University Press, 1917): p.857 lists Woodbury as having a daguerreotype studio. The letters suggest that Woodbury worked mostly in collodion. Letter, 1 August 1855, Woodbury transcriptions 500/2. Royal Photographic Society, Bath. Ibid. The portrait appears to be dated June 1857. The inscriptions in the album are evidently in Woodbury's hand. However, some appear to be altered and may have been added later. Some buildings included, e.g. Astley's Amphitheatre, were not complete until 1855 and others were finished even later. Information from Ian Laurenson, English Department, Monash University, from a project on early panoramas of London and Melbourne. The collodion process was definitely in occasional use in Australia in 1853, for Frederick W. Berger, a member of an early calotype club in England, exhibited one wet collodion view of Australia at an exhibition of the Photographic Society in January-February 1854. See Photographic Society Exhibition of Photographs and Daguerreotypes at the Gallery of the Society ofBritish Artists, Suffolk Street, Pall Mall, first year January-February 1854 (summary of exhibits), in Robert Herschkowitz, The British PhotographerAbroad: The First Thirty Years (London: Herschkowitz, 1980), p.92. Reproduced in M.E.A., p.23. Held by the National Library of Australia, NK 1335/a. Quote in Egon Kunz, Blood and Gold (Melbourne: Cheshire, 1969), reprinted in M.E.A., p.40. James Freeman states this in his article 'On the Progress of Photography and its application to the Arts and Sciences', Sydney Magazine of Science and Art, vol.2 (Sydney: James Waugh, 1859). He is not listed in British Directories. Lowes was married to the sister of John Coghill, owner of 'Bedervale' property, Braidwood, New South Wales, and his portrait is included among a collection dating from the mid- 1 840s. Some of these are possibly by Goodman. Private collection, Sydney. Woodbury mentions taking her portrait at Batchelder's in late 1855 (letter transcript 500/2, Royal Photographic Society, Bath). Held by the National Library of Australia, James Macarthur Collection, p.2, and identified as Terrence Aubrey Murray (1810-1873). However, the likely date of the daguerreotype, c.1850, does not match the subject's age (then 40). Bock's price list of c. 1855 is reproduced in Eve Buscombe, Australian Colonial Portraits (Hobart: Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, 1979), p.27. Joseph Turner of Geelong was so successful with child photography that clients travelled from Melbourne for sittings. See Paul Fox, Geelong on Exhibition: A Photographic Image (Geelong: Geelong Art Gallery, 1987), p.41. Held by the National Trust of South Australia at the Ayers House headquarters in Adelaide. As South Australia was colonised only by free settlers, there were evidently better relationships with Aboriginals. See discussion of Alexander Schramm's Aboriginal paintings in Ron Radford, 'Australia's Forgotten Painters: South Australian Colonial Painting 1836-1880. Part Two 1850-1880', Art and Australia (Spring 1987): p.93. The house had been sent out c.1850-53 from Pembrey, South Wales, by Alexander Parkes (1813-1890), who had invented celluloid in 1855. The daguerreotype, and an ambrotype view of the front of the house, were taken for a Mr J. Jennings according to inscriptions. What appear to be charming domestic scenes were evidently commissioned records. The Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences, Sydney, holds a very faded whole plate view of Melbourne, c.1855, while a ninth-plate view of Swanston Street, Melbourne, is held in a private collection, The La Trobe Library holds a few outdoor daguerreotypes, as does the Mortlock Library. The Eldorado Museum, Beechworth, evidently holds a large outdoor view and many are no doubt still in private hands. The sociology of the neglect of early photographs has yet to be examined. Held by the Mitchell Library (33 by 25 centimetres), ZML 300. Glaister's giant plates were referred to in 1858 in the Sydney Magazine of Science andArt vol. 1 (1858); p. 156,but no examples of these have been located. Johnson was also photographed by Freeman Bros, and this portrait was used for a woodcut in A narrative of the Melancholy wreck of the 'Dunbar'..., 1857 (Sydney: James Fryer, 1857). Twenty-two of the series are held by the La Trobe Library. They were exhibited by Dicker at the Victorian Exhibition of 1861. The practice of municipalities exhibiting panels of photographs at exhibitions was established by the early 1860s. See Paul Fox, Geelong on Exhibition, op. cit., regarding Geelong township's exhibition. Eight more views are held by the ANZ Bank Group Archive, Melbourne. A 'snapshot' portrait of a mother and baby in a garden is held by the National Library of Australia. Keast Burke collection C4. Paris Universal Exhibition: Catalogue of the Natural and Industrial Products of New South Wales Exhibited in the Australian Museum by the Paris Exhibition Commisioners (Sydney: Reading and Wellbank, 1854), p.88. See also, Official Catalogue of the Melbourne Exhibition, 1854, in connection with the Paris Exhibition, 1855 (Melbourne: F. Sinnett, 1854); and Tasmanian Contributions to the Universal Exhibition of Industry at Paris 1855 (Hobart: H.C. Best for the Daily Courier, n.d.). Held by the Mitchell Library, State Library of NSW, Sydney, the daguerreotype is now lost. Some earlier calotype clubs existed but tended to be informal associations of gentlemen amateurs.   return to Chapter 3      next chapter     contents