Australians Behind the Camera: Directory of Early Australian Photographers 1841–1945 was authored by Sandy Barrie and published in 2002. It is considered a key reference for identifying and dating early Australian photographers .The publication was a monumental archival project that delivered a directory and chronological record of thousands of photographers who operated within Australia during its first century of photography.
The directory is still primarily used by historians, curators, and genealogists to verify the provenance of vintage photographs. It contains over 10,000 entries for both amateur and professional photographers. The book provides specific dates during which a photographer was active at a particular studio or address. Listings are organized to help track the movement of photographers between different states (colonies) and specific regional or metropolitan street addresses. It includes the various commercial names under which photographers traded, which is essential for identifying "anonymous" studio portraits.
The book is particularly effective for dating Cartes de Visite (CDVs) and Cabinet Cards. Because photographers in the 19th and early 20th centuries moved frequently or updated their studio branding, researchers can cross-reference the address printed on the back of a photograph with Barrie’s directory to narrow down the image's date to a specific two or three-year window.
Sandy Barrie is a renowned collector who spent decades scouring post office directories, government gazettes, and newspapers to compile this data. This 2002 edition was a significant expansion of his earlier work from the late 1980s, reflecting years of additional primary source research. There is a new edition, but at the moment this is not confirmed.
While this remains a definitive printed resource, many of the records Barrie compiled have since informed digital databases used by the National Library of Australia (Trove) and various state libraries.
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