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CHAPTER
5 CONSOLIDATION
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Portraits
and views, 1860-1880
Views
had been made during the daguerreotype era and quite regularly
after the introduction of collodiotypes
in the early 1850s. However
their sale did not become an industry until the mid 1860s.
From that time on most of the major towns and cities were
provided with views of civic monuments, public works and local
scenery,
and their citizens with cheap carte-de-visite portraits.
Both
the daguerreotype and ambrotype had been displaced by the
now standard albumen print.
The
large albumen prints of the 1860s were characteristically rich
brown-purple in tone and
glossy. They were sold
for framing or, more frequently, for compilation in albums.
Bound
albums
of views were commonly advertised from the mid 1860s. Stereograph
views remained popular in the early 1860s but the availability
of large paper views seems to have dampened the market
in the later years of the decade. However, by 1865 Hobart
photographer
Samuel Clifford (1827-1890), who had begun work with
the 1858-1859 generation of collodion photographers,
had some seven hundred stereograph views in stock 'taken
in all
parts
of the island'(1).
The
new views trade supported a subsidiary industry in
the production of albums, both for views and portraits,
and novel display stands
which could be concertinaed or fanned out to show
a number
of portraits. The albums, which were often elaborately
tooled and
gilded, could be bought as stock items or specially
made to the client's design.
In
the late 1860s as paper photographs became more common, the
private album became
something of a work
of art in
its own right.
Collectors could express their own taste, not only
by their choice of pictures, but by their arrangement
and
embellishment
of them.
Benjamin Greene's album of photographs collected
on his travels in the 1860s is superbly bound in
green
leather
with gold clasps,
and sections are decorated with calligraphy and
watercolours(2).
Helen
Lambert, the wife of Commodore Rowley Lambert, who was head
of the Australian
Naval Station, appears
to have
been
an amateur photographer. A number of photographs
attributed to her
are included in albums compiled by English amateur
photographer Viscountess Frances Jocelyn (1820-1880)
and titled "Who
and what we saw in the Antipodes"(3).
In addition to exhibiting her own prints, Jocelyn
assembled
them, and those of
other professional and amateur photographers,
into collages with
witty painted decorations.
One tableau shows the daughters of Edward Deas
Thompson in fancy dress after attending the Sydney
ball to celebrate
the visit
of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son
of Queen
Victoria, to Australia in 1867.
The
group was photographed on the portico of Elizabeth Bay
House with a view of the harbour
behind. Viscountess
Jocelyn added
some decoration appropriate to the costumes
and with a flick of the brush the scene was transformed
into
an eastern
fantasy.
Such
irreverent playing with paper photographs must have been quite
liberating. A contemporaneous
album
of Queensland
views
by an unknown photographer and compiler,
contains portraits of members of the Deas Thompson family.
Several pages
show elaborate
collages of photographs of Aboriginals with
garlands of floral decoration and even a
poem. It is one
of the few
images to suggest
an arcadian life for the Aboriginal people.
In painting, Aboriginals were often shown
as they
had lived before
the white man's conquest
but few photographs attempted such imagery(4).
Mosaics
had appeared in the late 1850s although
the 1860s-1870s
efforts were far more ambitious than these
first attempts. Melbourne photographer
Thomas F. Chuck (c. 1844-1898) produced a
huge mosaic of over one thousand portraits
titled Explorers and early colonists
of Victoria in 1872(5). Townsend
Duryea made a giant mosaic in 1871 of 520 men attending
a banquet given in Adelaide by the merchant
E. Solomon. Henry Jones followed with
another of men of South Australia(6). These
are not as amusing however, as the expediency
shown in a painting by James Shaw
(1815-1881) of Adelaide, who stuck
tiny photographic portraits on the faces
of all the guests photographed
while attending a
major ball in Adelaide in 1866(7).
Without
doubt the greatest mosaic of the nineteenth
century was made later in 1885
by B.C. Boake
(1838-1921)
on the occasion of the return of the
Australian Contingent from
the
war in the
Sudan. Portraits of some of the men swirl
around the main expedition leaders like
the rings of Saturn, and
the photographs
are stuck
onto a black and gilt banner some 175
by 200 centimetres. It was Boake's finest
hour as a photographer(8).
As
the private and commercially produced
albums developed in the 1860s, original
prints were
also used to illustrate
printed
books. Most of the Australian books
in this genre are modest affairs with portrait
photographs
in the frontispiece(9). One
of the earliest and most ambitious
was produced
by Louisa
Anne Meredith
in Hobart in 1866, titled, Souvenir
of the Masques of Christmas,
and of The Old and New Year, 'written
and designed by Louisa Anne Meredith'.
Presented
at Government
House, Tasmania,
January 18, 1866. Eight original prints
by Charles A.
Woolley (1834-1922),
a Hobart photographer and Major Thomas
Wingate (d.1869), an amateur painter
and photographer from Sydney,
recorded
the
costume tableaux(10).
An
unknown photographer staged or recorded
a series of tableaux from 1867 to
1868, illustrating the
work of
the Benedictine monks
at the New Norcia Mission in Western
Australia. The brothers are shown
teaching their Aboriginal
charges
various trades,
and participating in religious rites.
Some of
these photographs were
used in later publications but their
original purpose is not clear. Bishop
Salvado who
founded the Monastery
seems
to have
encouraged the recording of the mission
work through photography, and his
brother, Santos,
had been
a photographer in Spain
before arriving in New Norcia in
the 1870s(11).
Townsend
Duryea in Adelaide included a tiny portrait of himself as an
advertisement for
his studio
in J. Boothby's Adelaide Almanac
and Directory for South Australia
of 1865(12). In
general the use of photography
for advertising was rare in
the 1860s.
The
visit of Prince Alfred, the first member of the British
Royal
Family
to visit the
Australian colonies,
produced
souvenir books
illustrated with original photographs
from his visits to Adelaide and
Melbourne in
1867-1868(13). Royalty
was already popular as subjects
in commercial cartes but the
actual Royal presence
caused fierce competition between
photographers who were eager
to secure rights to photograph the
Prince.
Duryea was
successful
in Adelaide and thus earned the
distinction of making the first
Australian photographs of British
Royalty.
A
cartoon n the Sydney Punch of 5 October 1867 by cartoonist
and
photographer
J. Montague Scott (w.1861-1885)
satirised the less fortunate photographers
trying
to get pictures. The image
suggests that the press photographer
was a
phenomenon of the 1860s but
this is perhaps misleading.
Events were difficult
to
capture because of movement,
especially with crowds. Samuel
Clifford, an
official photographer
in Hobart
took a series
of the Prince
outdoors including a crowd
scene, and even his bedroom, but most
images of
the Prince
were the
official portraits(14). Other celebrities
made their appearance in the
1860s, and production of their
portraits
as cartes
became a genre
in its own right.
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Charles
Nettleton (1826—1902) who had come from England in 1855
in search of a better climate and to try his luck on the goldfields,
was able
to photograph the first English team to visit Australia in
1861(15) and
another ambitious photographer took a picture of the tumultuous
crowds outside the Café de Paris in Melbourne awaiting
the team's arrival(16). The Australian
public however, did not appear very well in photographs until
later developments in the 1880s considerably shortened exposure
times.
The
infamous were popular early subjects. Henry Pohl of Wangaratta
sold large numbers of his grisly cartes-de-visites of the dead
bushranger Mad Dog Morgan in 1865, having improved the photograph
by putting a gun in the outlaw's hand and propping his eyes open(17).
Various murder cases were also covered such as the Kinder case
of 1861.
A pamphlet account could be had for a little extra,
with
photographs of the parties involved(18).
A complete album of cartes related to the long-running trials
concerning
the claim of Arthur
Orton, butcher of Wagga Wagga to be the heir of Lady Tichborne
in England, was also available(19).
Photographs
of specific events probably had little sales value as prints
but served to advertise the photographer. The photographs
were placed in his street showcase or provided to the newspaper
for use in illustration(20). Whereas
painting in these years seems predominantly landscape or
portraiture the views trade
subject
matter tended to parallel that of the illustrated papers
and journals and include more topical matters. This market
exploded
after the
introduction of photomechanical reproduction in books in
the 1880s and newspapers in the 1890s.
Commissions
became an important source of income in the 1860s with
politicians being among the earliest to perceive the
value of becoming
immortalised in photographs. Twelve members of the South
Australian Legislative Assembly were photographed for
a special
album in 1868.
While the settings remain simple: a desk and chair, each
man has been given a character of his own. The large
size and rich tones
of the albumen prints support the self important air
of the public figures(21).
Groups
also began to be photographed on location. Founding Father
of Melbourne, John Pascoe Fawkner, was photographed
with other
members of the Fitzroy Police Court on 3 November 1862(22). One
of the most striking efforts is the portrait of Professor
George Halford
conducting an anatomy class in 1864 at the Melbourne
Medical School - complete with cadavre whose head is
some distance
from the body.
Hand-colouring
of paper photographs became part of most portrait studios
and often featured in
exhibitions.
In
1864, an unusual
process was introduced by Charles Wilson who claimed
to hold the patent right from Mr Senno. The process,
called
sennotype,
involved
making two identical prints, the top one being waxed
and the bottom broadly hand coloured. The effect,
when both
prints were in register,
was to give an appearance of considerable solidity
and relief. Only half a dozen photography studios
offered sennotypes and not always with a licence from Wilson,
who found like
previous patent
holders, that a good deal of time was spent defending
his rights(23).
Alfred
Bock in Hobart was an official user of the process
and his claim to fame as a photographer really
rests
on the quality of
his sennotypes. These usually have a green label
with his name and a description of the process
on the back.
Albums
of views both large and small steadily increased from the
mid 1860s. There seems to have been a
slight hiatus after
the first
burst of productions on a grand scale in the
late I850s. Stereograph views were more popular than
cartes as
commercial sets. As with
the Royal Tour, gaining commissions was one means
of securing an edge over the competition from
the ever-increasing
numbers
of studios.
The bigger studios attracted government contracts
to provide views for major exhibitions and to
document the exhibitions
as well(24).
In
Adelaide, Townsend Duryea had entered the collodion trade
by 1855 when he advertised 'all the new Processes
on Glass
and Paper,'(25) and was offering an album of views for sale,
including a 4.3 metre panorama of Adelaide taken
in 1867(26).
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Charles
Nettleton
Charles
Nettleton was one of the most prolific and accomplished of the
new generation of views photographers. He reputedly photographed
the first train journey in Melbourne in 1854(27) and
thereafter developed connections with work for government departments.
By 1868 Nettleton had released an album of views of Melbourne
containing twelve photographs(28).
He had already had considerable success with his views exhibited
at the Intercolonial Exhibitions of 1862 and 1866. By the mid
1870s Nettleton had established a reputation for urban views,
particularly those of public works. He seems to have had an aptitude
for industrial subjects and improved his technique to the point
of delineating these with great clarity and precision.
Nettleton
produced a number of panoramas in the I860s, one of which was
used as the basis for a lithograph by De Gruchy and Leigh(29).
In his large album prints of the mid to late I870s of views of
shipping at Queens Wharf, the Drops at Caliban waterworks and
the waterworks at Geelong, Malmsbury and Yean Yan. Nettleton's
ability to handle complex structures with great depth of field
and fine detail is clear(30).
Nettleton's
classical approach to photographs of construction is similar
to that of his counterpart in Sydney, Charles Pickering (w, 1856-1870s)
although Pickering's works are simpler and more direct with less
of Nettleton's fondness for deep diagonal divisions of the space.
In 1870 Pickering was commissioned to photograph public works
for the Government Architect James Barnet. The prints were for
the London Exhibition of 1873(31).
He had previously been official photographer to the Metropolitan
Intercolonial Exhibition of 1870. The Government Printing Office
acquired the negatives and made up an album of the views in 1872,
thus beginning the development of an archive still in existence
at the present premises of the Office(32).
Pickering's
architectural and urban views are austere documents in which
the city of Sydney looks rather like a Renaissance town
as new buildings in this style rise. By the time John Sharkey (w, 1863-1888), the head of the Photographic Branch of
the Printing Office began a large series of views of Sydney
buildings and streets, the Printing Office equipment included
a wide-angle
lens camera. It was used, a little indiscriminately it seems
to make more dramatic views. In contrast to Nettleton and Noone
in Melbourne, Pickering and Sharkey in particular favoured
more atmosphere.
These
photographs were not for sale but for presentation to
distinguished visitors and other appropriate persons, such
as government officers
and politicians. Direct sale to the public would have caused
controversy with photographers.
Survey
offices and Lands Departments were among the first government
departments in the 1860s to include
photography
in their work.
By the I880s it was common practice for departments to use
photographs, and Melbourne and Sydney as the largest urban
centres were the
most active.
In
little over a decade from its introduction in Australia, the
collodiotype had facilitated the rise of the
views trade
to such
an extent that by the mid 1860s some photographers like
Captain Sweet in Adelaide and Charles Walter in Victoria could
advertise
as specialist landscape photographers. Photographers had
been travelling around the country making both portraits
and views
from the earliest
years, but their income rested on the portrait.
City-based
studios specialising in urban views, local scenery and pastoral
properties such as Samuel Clifford in Hobart,
Townsend Duryea and George Freeman (1842—1910)(33) in
Adelaide, Charles Pickering in Sydney, Charles Nettleton
in Melbourne and Geo P.
Wright (w. 1874—1883) in Queensland, developed
by the mid 1860s, with portraiture as an equally important
part of their work.
The
collodiotype was a means but not a single cause of
the role photography began to play in the mid to late
nineteenth century.
Photography was also seen as having the aesthetic,
moral and spiritual dimensions of the other arts. James Smith
responded
to Sun Pictures
of Victoria in 1858 in a similar fashion to the way
he
did to paintings. The Intercolonial Exhibition in Melbourne
in
1866
brought forth
a review by 'Sol' that was published in the Australia
Monthly Magazine. In his review 'A Wanderer Among
the Photographic
Views at the Intercolonial
Exhibition' Sol chose to concentrate on landscape photography:
as
a most important branch of an interesting and valuable
art, which but seldom calls forth in these colonies
the powers of
a critic's pen, or attracts the attention of art
worshippers. We
should like to see here the foundation of a photographic
society, which would keep this accomplishment more
prominently before
the public, and bring us more closely into communication
with the followers
of the art in England and America.
Samuel
Clifford's stereographs gained Sol's warmest appreciation as
'delightful
representations of nature
being full of
atmosphere yet true to nature in their details
and perspective'(34).
At
the beginning of the review, Sol expressed the opinion that photography
provided an overview of
the growth
of settlements without the expenditure of time
and money
on a personal visit.
Perhaps
it was just such a spirit that supported the views
trade. It
is also at this time that illustrated magazines
began to include articles
and illustrations by travelling landscape photographer
Charles Walter and serious efforts were made to
provide photographs
of remote regions and expeditions.
The
small size of the stereograph camera and consequent faster speed
of the
plates made it particularly
suited to outdoor
work and for excursions beyond the city streets.
In addition, various
preservative processes enabled photographers
to dispense with carrying chemicals to coat the wet
plates. Short
expeditions into the bush
could thus be made by amateurs and professionals
in search of views of remote scenic features.
Many photographers
continued to be itinerant
or to make extended tours from their city bases
selling portraits and views in regional areas.
The carte-de-visite
was used
to
make urban views and a new form of portrait in
front of one's home or
shop.
American
and Australasian Photographic Company
One
studio which became famous for its specialisation in house
by house, shop by shop and town by town
photography was the
American and Australasian Photographic Company
formed by
English immigrant
showman, Beaufoy Merlin (1830-1873) in
1866.(35) Whilst making house-front portraits
Merlin attracted the attention of young Charles
Bayliss (1850—1897) who had come from
England as a child. Bayliss joined the firm
as an apprentice
and travelled with Merlin
up through Victoria and New South Wales to
Sydney where the A & A
Co established a studio in 1870(36).
On
arrival in Sydney in September 1870 the A & A
Co advertisements claimed they were about
to photograph every public building, shop,
and private residence in Sydney as they had
already:
photographed
almost every house in Melbourne,
and the other towns in Victoria. Within
the past few
months
they have
photographed all Yass, Braidwood and
Queanbeyan, Goulburn etc, and they
have
just now completed taking nearly 800
views of Parramatta alone(37).
They
claimed 'street photography' as their invention. Figures certainly
appear in
earlier photographs
but were either
posed or sitting
still through the long exposures, but
most photographs before the 1870s could not
easily register moving
figures. In 1872
the A & A
Co moved operations to the goldfields at
Hill End.
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J. W. Lindt
A
particular extension of the views trade, that of press photography,
is often traced to
reporting of
the capture of the gang of bushrangers
led by Ned Kelly at Glenrowan, Victoria in 1880(38). Journalists,
artists and photographers commissioned by the newspapers
were permitted to join a special train of troopers and the official
Victorian Government Photographer Mr Burman, sent in pursuit
of the gang. By the time the train arrived Ned Kelly had
been
captured, having been seriously wounded in the early hours
of the day. Joe Byrne, a member of his gang, had already
died in
the burning of the pub in which the gang was trapped.
The
journalists could recreate the action they had missed by
interviewing those present. The official photographer
was occupied
recording the
grisly remains, including the body of Byrne that was slung
up on the door of Benalla Police Station to facilitate photographic
records.
J. W. Lindt (1845—1926) was among the agents dispatched
to the scene by the Melbourne newspapers(39). He
chose to make an image
recording Burman photographing Byrne and being watched by a
group of onlookers. The artist Julian Ashton was also caught
leaving
the scene having already sketched Byrne in the cells.
The
Lindt picture is a mystery for it seems to point to his understanding
of the role press photography (although it was
not published)(40) would have
in the future or to the development of what today
would
be called 'a media event'.
Perhaps
he was simply testing an exposure for his wet plates, however
this process was not
one that naturally encouraged
haphazard shooting.
A decision to take a picture preceded each image rather
than a quick response to events unfolding in front of the camera.
The first dry
plates had already been imported into Australia and Lindt
had been among the first to test the new plates as he also
ran
a supplies
service in addition to his photographic work(41). Dry
plates were made using gelatin as the medium for the light-sensitive
salts
and were
faster than the wet collodion process and far less contrasty.
Press
photography did not grow as a trade until after the
introduction of direct photomechanical reproduction in
the late I880s and
1890s. At first photographs were transferred to the woodblocks
for the guidance
of the engravers. Then, by the late 1890s, halftone photoengravings
were being used in the Sydney Mail, and after 1894 specialist
photomechanical firms called process works were being
used by newspapers. The Electric
Photo Engraving Co in Sydney supplied the illustrated
paper the Sydney Mail until 1902, when the firm set up its own
photographic department(42).
Government
photographers supplying the printing offices had functioned
a little like press photographers but
it was not
till after the
turn of the century that journalists were sent out
as correspondents to
report and illustrate events. A.B. (Banjo) Paterson
(1864-1941),
for example, was dispatched to the Boer War in South
Africa as the Mail's official photographer and journalist.
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List
of illustrations used in the original publication (captions may
be abbreviated):
P.35:
Album of cart-de-visites. 1860s-1880s.
P.36:
Helen Lambert (Attributed) at Elizabeth Bay House, Sydney. 1868
P.37:
Thomas F chuck: The explorers and early colonists of Victoria,
1872
P.38:
Charles A Wooolley: Tableaux, 1866
P.38:
J. Montague Scott: Sydney punch, 1867
P.39:
Unknown: Dissecting, Melbourne University, 1864
P.40:
Alfred Block: Portrait of Couple with dog, c.1864
P.41:
Charles nettleton: Volunteer Fir Brigade, Ballarat. c.1867
P.41:
NSW Printing Office: Picton viaduct, Stonequarry Creek, 1879
P.42:
George Freeman: Port Adelaide Downstream, c.1860
P.43:
J.W.Lindt: Body of Joe Byrne, Benalla 1880
P.44:
Samual Clifford: Huts at the Springs, c.1860
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