The life of a photograph can be unwieldly. There is the moment of capture, a finger pressing on a shutter, of a sitter’s smile given or withheld, the reflection of light. Then there is the life of the photograph once taken: a print to be held, glued into scrapbooks, printed in magazines, framed, sold in galleries, or swiped across on a screen.
The photographs held in the State Library of New South Wales’ collection may have had a quiet previous life: in shoeboxes, or under beds, or in filing cabinets in newspaper archives: eventually donated to, or sourced by, the library.
Visual feast: The exhibition, Shot, is being held in the new underground gallery of the State Library of NSW, pictured above.
Shot brings together 400 photographs – each with a life of its own – all narrating a pocket of Australia’s photographic history. The exhibition reflects the library’s goal to broaden community access to its materials. The exhibition includes a range of genres: documentary, fashion, family snapshots, formal portraiture, still life, street photography and mugshots. Most of these photographs are displayed along the gallery’s walls, behind grids of Perspex, mimicking giant photographic contact sheets.
The photographs span an impressive range of formats. Daguerreotypes, one of the earliest forms of photography to be publicly available are exhibited, include Australia’s oldest surviving photograph from 1845. There are also ambrotypes - images printed on glass plates; albumen prints, a developing process that involved using egg whites; glass plate negatives, black and white and colour prints. They offer a small window into the extensive photographic archives of the State Library: a collection of over two million photographs.
There are familiar faces and scenes in the exhibition: in a photo by William Yang, a young Cate Blanchett looks over her shoulder, tongue out. The figure of the Sunbaker in Max Dupain’s well-known ode to the beach appears more than once. The walls are graced by famous artists, writers, sports legends: painter Margaret Olley, novelist Dulcie Deamer, photographer Lewis Morely and boxer Bill Larrigo.
I’m curious about what photographs taken inside homes reveal about everyday habits and objects, personal relationships, familial connections and disconnections.
But it is the minor notes of the exhibition that intrigue me most. The handwriting in a photo album; the domestic background of a group of sitters; the collection of books piled in a room; photographs taken inside people’s homes that speak to the habits and textures of everyday life.
The daily domestic has been an important - but undervalued – component of photographic culture. In my book The Domestic Interior and the Self in Contemporary Photography, I argue that domestic moments and spaces play a key role in photographic histories and practices.
I’m curious about what photographs taken inside homes reveal about everyday habits and objects, personal relationships, familial connections and disconnections. In one chapter of my book, for example, I examine the work of Daifu Motoyuki who repeatedly photographs the mess on his family’s kitchen table in Still Life (2016). In another chapter I write about Nigel Shafran’s portraits of his partner Ruth taken over many years inside their home in Ruth on the Phone (2012). Across a range of examples, I show that the domestic, a complicated space laced with the tensions of everyday life, is significant for the stories told through photographs.
Shot: Five must-see images
A grand obsession c 1905
Unknown photographer
This is a photograph of David Scott Mitchell’s sitting room in Darlinghurst. The room is crammed with his collection of books which surround a floral chair. The squish of the chair’s seat and cushion reveal its history of use. This photograph features no human figures but is full of human presence.
Shirly Winter 1954
Robert Donaldson
This photo jumped out at me: a portrait of feet threading a needle. The photograph was taken by a Sydney Press Photographer for Pix magazine in a celebration of Winter’s ability to do household jobs with her feet after losing her ability to use her hands after having polio when she was a child. I love how this photograph is taken from a cat’s perspective, low on the ground, the light catching the subject’s busy toes.
Street kitchen, Martin place 2017
John Janson-Moore
John Janson-Moore is a Sydney-based photographer. His photograph Street kitchen shows domestic life on the street: a tent city in Martin Place, positioned across from the Reserve Bank of Australia. The two subjects of this environmental portrait sit in comfy chairs, surrounded by bags, milk crates, mugs: the paraphernalia of home taking up space in the sterility of Martin Place.
See this image here at the online version of the exhibition
Rosaleen Norton 1970-1
Rennie Ellis
Rennie Ellis was a photographer: well-known for his photographs of Australian figures. In this portrait, Ellis has captured the direct gaze of Rosaleen Norton, an artist and self-proclaimed witch (known as the ‘Witch of Kings Cross’). Posing in her tiny domestic space Norton cradles a skull, a bat brooch pinned to her scarf, a pack of Alpines open in front of her.
See this image here at the online version of the exhibition
The Sisters 1988
Anne Zahalka
Anne Zahalka is a celebrated Australian photographer. The Sisters is part of a larger series called Resemblance II. In that series Zahalka photographs her subjects in interior spaces, bringing together the domestic scenes with the aesthetic conventions of 17th century portraiture. Here conventions such as bowls of fruit, drapes and filtered light accompany the Formica tables, colours and fabrics of her subjects’ 1980s Australian context.
See this image here at the online version of the exhibition
Dr Jane Simon's new book The Domestic Interior and the Self in Contemporary Photography , pictured above left, is published by Routledge. Dr Simon, pictured right, says her book reframes the relationship between interiors and exteriors, public and private, and argues that the domestic plays a key role in photographic histories and contemporary photographic art practice.
Shot 400 photographs | 200 photographers | 3 centuries Free Exhibition - State Library of NSW, showing until November 2024.
Alongside the Shot Exhibition, the State Library is also hosting the Nikon-Walkley Press Photography Exhibition until April 28.
