Powerhouse Museum - Photo of the Day

Come to grief on a steep incline

2012-02-23T01:13:41Z

One of the things I love most about looking through the Powerhouse collection is the unexpected finds – like this comical photograph from the Tyrrell Collection.

I can only imagine that this full plate glass negative titled Come to Grief on a Steep Incline, by Kerry and Co., Sydney, c.1884-1917 was staged, with the men cavorting in the snow posing for the image. The raised leg and arm of the man on the left, the entangled limbs of the men in the foreground… surely such a great moment of drama did not occur spontaneously to be captured so perfectly by the photographer.

I grow even more suspicious as I look towards the rear of the photograph, where a bearded fellow is captured, bowed with hat in hand, looking directly at the photographer. Had the steep incline named in the photograph really brought five men undone already, surely this snoe shower would himself be throwing on the brakes and trying to find a way clear of the disaster zone, instead of posing so perfectly.

So often, photography is used to document moments of significance. But it is also a medium perfectly suited to capturing moments of fun, play and tomfoolery – and whether staged or not, surely this photograph captures exactly that.

Start for the Championship, Snow Shoe Races, Kiandra

2012-02-23T01:16:37Z

Oh how snowfield fashions have changed! This photographic negative, which was taken c1884-1917, shows eight intrepid snow shoe racers, lined up at the “Start for the Championship… Kiandra.” Each of the men is dressed in a suit and hat, most with a tie and gloves as well. Although suits have maintained their place in contemporary business fashion, hitting the slopes in a three-piece today would no doubt be a little unconventional.

This photograph is captioned “Start for the Championship”, but one can only imagine that the big event was at least a few minutes from imminent, given that the second man on the slopes is still holding his snow shoes. However, the event was set to take place in the home of skiing in Australia – Kiandra, New South Wales.

The Kiandra Snow Shoe Club (now the Kiandra Pioneer Ski Club) was established in 1861. According to the Club’s history, it is the oldest ski club in the world and was established after three Norwegians – Elias Gottaas, Soren Torp and Carl Bjerknes – sought their fortunes in the goldfields of Kiandra. The township of Kiandra has since been abandoned, but the ski club lives on in a new location in the Perisher Valley.

Tiaras for two

2012-02-23T21:30:20Z

This photograph from the studio of New York celebrity milliner Mr John shows two of his high profile clients, Maggie NcNellis and the third Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, both wearing tiaras, called Royal Command and Queen of Hearts. The photograph is one of seven promotional photographic prints for Mr John’s Coronation of Spring and Summer collection of 1953.

Maggie McNellis was best known at this time as the host of a television panel show called Leave it to the Girls. She was also active as a host for charity fashion shows and was described by Television Magazine as one of the 10 best dressed women in America.

According to an interview with Morris Goldberg, reproduced in a brochure called Mr John, Napoleon of fashion, (A9467-11/27/14) Mr John named Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney as the best dressed woman in the world, saying that:

She is one of the few women I know who hasn’t got a nervous wardrobe, By that I mean everything co-ordinates.

It’s unfortunate that Maggie McNellis’ Mr John tiara is barely visible in the photograph but Mrs Vanderbilt’s sports a signature Mr John touch, a centrally placed feather.

Mr John frequently made great use of feathers in his designs. He claimed to have been employed in his early twenties making hats for dancers Cècile Sorel at the Folies Bergère and Mistinguett at the Casino de Paris. Mistinguett was known for her stage hats with plumes standing five feet into the air.

John P. John, (1906-1993) was born John Pico Harberger in Munich and emigrated to the USA in 1919. He later studied medicine at University of Lucerne, and art at the Sorbonne and l’École des Beaux Arts in Paris. After being apprenticed to his mother, dressmaker Madame Laurel, he formed a partnership with Frederick Hirst, John-Frederics, in 1929. He started his own millinery company, Mr. John, Inc., in New York in 1948.

According to the New York Times, in the 1940′s and 1950′s, the name Mr. John was as famous in the world of hats as Christian Dior was in the realm of haute couture. His designs attracted attention from Hollywood and he worked with costume designers including Gilbert Adrian, Walter Plunkett, and Cecil Beaton. He designed Greta Garbo’s hat in Mata Hari, Marlena Dietrich’s cloche in Shanghai Express, Marilyn Monroe’s headdress in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and the headwear for Vivien Leigh as Scarlet O’Hara in Gone with the Wind. His clients outside of the film world included Eleanor Roosevelt, Gypsy Rose Lee, Jaqueline Onassis and Wallace Simpson. Mr John received the Coty American Fashion Critics award in 1943, the Neiman Marcus award in 1950 and the Millinery Institute of America award, 1956.

The prints from the Mr John studio were acquired with the archive of Madame Louise Lamoureux, who ran a Sydney fashion house specialising in embroidery and hand beading, including samples of overseas materials and styles. Some objects from the archive of Louise Lamoureux can be viewed on the Powerhouse Museum online collection index.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photographer unknown
Powerhouse Museum Collection: A9467-11/17/5
No known copyright restrictions

Gold mining in 1905 – rats down the hole?

2012-02-16T05:34:27Z

This image is another from a series about gold mining and processing at Mount Boppy Gold Mine in 1905.

The original caption reads ‘Leading Stope – showing solid face of Milling Ore 35 ft wide’. A stope a large opening in an underground mine where ore is extracted. As the rock is removed the stope is generally filled from the bottom so the next section above can be mined.

In this image the previous stope can be seen in the lower left hand corner. Also visible is the top of the ‘pigsty’ timbers laid at right angles to each other to support the roof of the previous excavation. The floor is filled with mullock (broken rock) and the men are working using hammers and gads (a heavy steel wedge with a narrow chisel point) to drill the rock while standing on a flimsy scaffold. The miners are wearing calico caps (no hard hat) and boyangs or straps around their trouser legs to prevent dust (and sometimes rats!) getting up their trousers.

Ref: Ken McQueen, ‘The Mount Boppy Gold Mine, NSW: A leader in its Day and More to Come’ Journal of Australasian Mining History, Vol 3 September 2005.

Rats in Mines

Professor Ken McQueen provided the following trivia about rats in mines “Yes rats will live anywhere warm where they can get food and are well known residents of mines (although I am not sure that they were present at 300 foot in the Mount Boppy Mine). In some alluvial deep lead mines in Victoria they were a good OH and S warning system, fleeing the mine if it was about to start flooding (a bit like rats leaving a sinking ship)! There were often scraps of food in mines for rats to eat and where ponies were used grain and hay. They probably also ate human and animal faeces in the workings. There are reports of albino blind rats in mines, but I am not sure how true these are. The Cornish miners, ate Cornish pasties which were crimped at the top. They ate them holding the pasty by the crimped top (because their hands were often dirty and there were generally no washing facilities down the mine). They then threw the crimped bit away, providing scraps for rats. Their tradition was that the crimped bit was for the small elf-like gremlins that they believed lived in the mines called ‘Bucca’ – the early -German Saxony miners had a similar belief and called these small supernatural beings ‘cobolds’ – the origin of the metal name cobalt”.

More urban glamour

2012-02-22T03:51:49Z

This photograph from the Bruno Benini archive shows Australian model Helen Homewood striking a languid pose in a Melbourne nightclub called The Embers. Homewood is modelling a dress by Philippa. Benini has created atmosphere with low lighting, the saxophone players in the background and the model’s pose, all of which combine to say ‘jazz’. But the style doesn’t stop there.

In the foreground, just visible, are two chairs that appear to be ‘Michael Hirst’ chairs, designed by Clement Meadmore, one of Australia’s leading designers at the time. The chairs were manufactured by Michael Hirst Pty Ltd, Melbourne, between 1959 and 1965. Made of plastic-coated steel, they were designed to be used both indoors and outdoors. The shadows cast by the chair on the right are as interesting as the chair itself, adding texture and interest to the composition.

Clement Meadmore was known for his sparse, economical style, saying that:

Furniture should enhance a feeling of space by its non-obstructing presence…

(quoted in The Australian dream: design of the fifties, Powerhouse Publishing, 1993, p.169)

The Powerhouse Museum holds a white ‘Michael Hirst’ chair in in its collection which can be viewed on the Online Collection index.

This photograph was displayed in the 2010 Powerhouse Museum exhibition, Creating the look: Benini and fashion photography, in a section titled, Urban glamour which showed images shot in Melbourne at night. Another image from this section of the exhibition was posted posted recently on Photo of the Day.

Photography by Bruno Benini
Collection Powerhouse Museum
© Benini Estate

Photograph of June Wimble as an infant, 1926 – 1929

2012-02-20T00:17:29Z

This tinted photographic print is a portrait of June Wimble, the daughter of George Benjamin Wimble and Kathleen Pansey Wimble, and her doll.

The undated photograph was taken by H. Pardey. From our files, “according to Sandy Barrie’s “Australians behind the camera: Directory of early Australian photographers 1841-1945″ there was a HJ Pardey, photographer, operating in Cowra, 1926-1929.”

Wimble’s shoes are tinted blue, as is the wallpaper detail behind her (which looks to be a freehand drawing to create a background). The other featured colour on the tinted print is pink, which decorates June’s dress and gives her skin and lips a rosy glow. Both colours are quite soft, lending the image a very sweet appearance.

Post by Susan Cairns
Digital Media Services volunteer

Photograph by H. Pardey
No known copyright restrictions

Mining life and the general store

2012-02-16T21:55:04Z

Taken on the 2nd of February 1890, this photograph of a general store shows the wide variety of newspapers and magazines available on the goldfields at the time.

On sale were two daily papers, the Adelaide Evening Star and the Sydney Evening News, as well as a range of weekly and monthly journals, The Bulletin, The Town and Country Journal, The Sydney Mail, The Freeman’s Journal and the short lived Dead Bird, ‘devoted to sport and drama’. The headlines tell the news of the day: cricket results, the Rosehill races, bad weather and shipwrecks.

Along with a wide range of reading matter the store also offered ‘cheap boots and shoes’, ‘repairs’ and ‘horses tailed’.

The staff and customers have been carefully arranged around the slab hut building for the purpose of the photograph.

References:
What’s in store? a history of retailing in Australia, Kimberley Webber and Ian Hoskins with Joy McCann, Powerhouse Publishing, 2003
The Australian Goldrushes: Entertainment on the Goldfields, Kimberley Webber. Powerhouse Museum and Macmillan Education Australia, 2001

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photography by Kerry & Co, Tyrrell Collection
Tyrrell inventory number 68/13, Charles Kerry studio number 2527

No known copyright restrictions

Wedding, Palmer’s Mystery Hike No. 4, 1932

2012-02-16T22:36:26Z

Photo of the Day has previously unearthed a number of images from the five mystery hikes that were held around Sydney in 1932. These enormously popular hikes were organised by the railways, with the department store F.J. Palmer and Sons as the commercial sponsor.

This photograph is from Mystery Hike No. 4, and captures a wedding ceremony that took place at the walk. According to our files, the couple were Ivy Springett and Henry Hillier of Woolwich and they were married by Rev. Goss of Croydon.
(Reference: Melissa Harper. The Ways of the bushwalker: on foot in Australia. Sydney, UNSW Press, 2007 pp. 179-192].

The quarter plate glass negative from the Tom Lennon commercial photography archive was taken on 7 August 1932, and captures a sea of joyful faces in the crowd. Onlookers crowded onto cars, into the surrounding trees, and clustered around the base of the vehicle upon which the wedding took place.

In the foreground of the photo, a man holds a musical instrument (a trumpet?), while sheet music on music stands can be seen between members of the crowd nearby, no doubt adding to the atmosphere of the day.

Post by Susan Cairns
Digital Media Services volunteer

Photography by Tom Lennon
No known copyright restrictions

Joseph Box shoemaking archive 1868-1923

2012-02-16T22:24:11Z

This lovely image of items from the Joseph Box shoemaking archive, 1868-1923 brings together a photograph of a Box shoe, two drawings of Box’s work and two catalogues into a single shot. The shoe in the photograph is highly detailed, covered in a flower pattern with a single cross-foot strap. By photographing this image side-by-side with the drawings themselves, it is possible to compare the designed shoe with its real-life equivalent.

According to our files,
The Joseph Box shoemaking archive is part of the Museum’s significant Joseph Box collection. Joseph Box Ltd had its origins in a London shoemaking business established in 1808 by a ‘ladies shoemaker’ called James Sly. From 1816 Sly’s apprentice was Robert Dixon Box, the fifteen-year-old son of a bankrupted Quaker attorney. Box was to become manager of the business when Sly died in 1826, and gained a reputation for fine shoemaking through its participation at international exhibitions and by obtaining Royal Warrants. The business became known as Joseph Box Ltd in 1862 after it was transferred to Robert’s son, Joseph. Like his father, Joseph started in the trade at the age of 15, but retired at the relatively early age of 42 to enable his daughters to enter society. Although he transferred the business to his cousins the Box Kinghams in 1882, Joseph maintained an active interest in shoemaking through collecting. At the end of the century the business was later taken over by royal shoemakers Gundry & Sons, which was itself taken over by John Lobb Ltd some time after 1953.

The collection acquired by the Museum in 1942 was probably started by Robert Dixon and consolidated by Joseph Box and the Box Kinghams during the second half of the 1800s. It includes remnants of leather shoes from the Middle Ages found in English archaeological sites, intact European shoes from the 1600s onwards, ‘foreign’ shoes collected as ‘curiosities’ from around the world, shoe buckles and spurs, as well as documents relating to Joseph Box Ltd.

Post by Susan Cairns, Digital Media Services volunteer
Photography by Sue Stafford
© All rights reserved

Backstage at the Purple Onion

2012-02-16T22:14:37Z

This photograph by David Mist, shot for his publication, Sydney: a book of photographs, shows performers backstage and the Purple Onion in Kensington, Sydney, c. 1969.

The photograph was part of a chapter depicting Sydney as a sophisticated city with a wide variety of restaurants and nightclubs. On the opposite page to this photograph was an image from the Whisky à go go, previously posted on Photo of the Day.

The tight framing of this shot, with the cropping of objects like wigs and clothing in the foreground, emphasises the small, crowded backstage space and lends at a slightly claustrophic atmosphere.

The Purple Onion opened in 1962 when drag shows were gaining popularity in Sydney. Writing in Pol magazine in 1969, theatre critic Katharine Brisbane said:

The Purple Onion is one of my favourite theatrical haunts – a place where anything is possible and nothing is as it seems…

(quoted in City of the Plain, Garry Wotherspoon, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1991.)

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian
Photo by David Mist
© All rights reserved

Gold mining – working for the ‘man’ in 1905

2012-02-15T22:31:58Z

This image is one of series of gold mining and processing at Mount Boppy Gold Mine in 1905. These images have been in our collection since 1906. It is likely that they were part of a display when the mission of Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences (as the Powerhouse was previously known) was to educate the ‘working man’ and encourage industry.

The original caption reads ‘No1 Stope – showing solid face of Milling Ore 35-ft wide’. A ‘stope’ is a large opening in an underground mine, where ore is extracted. This particular stope was 300 foot (91.44 metres) underground.

The miners are working with hammers and gads (a heavy steel drill with a narrow chisel point) to drill the rock. In the centre holding a candle stands, Mine Superintendant, Thomas Pascoe and on the right also with a candle is Mine Manager, R. P. Richard. The miner to the right has a series of drills of different length to extend the hole he is drilling deeper before loading with explosives. There was no electricity underground in 1905 and mining took place by candlelight.

The picture is posed for the camera and appeared in a major article about the Mount Boppy Mine in the Sydney Mail Newspaper on 12 July 1905.

Ref: Ken McQueen, ‘The Mount Boppy Gold Mine, NSW: A leader in its Day and More to Come’ Journal of Australasian Mining History, Vol 3 September 2005.

Faith, Fashion, Fusion

2012-02-14T01:35:18Z

Ever since Yves St Laurent’s controversial Beat inspired Fall/Winter 1960 collection for Christian Dior, designers and fashion historians have acknowledged the impact of streetstyle on high fashion. More recently with the rise of photobloggers like Scott Schuman and his influential fashion blog The Sartorialist, streetstyle photos have become one of the most significant sources of information for trendspotters and trendforecasters analysing current and future trends for fashion media and designers. When Schuman posted a photo of a stylish Muslim women on Melbourne’s Chapel street in 2009, the image drew one of the largest and most positive responses from fans of the blog.

For the upcoming Powerhouse Museum exhibition, Faith, fashion, fusion: Muslim Women’s style in Australia, members of the exhibition team took to the streets to document the diversity and creativity of Muslim women’s style in Sydney.

One of the first events we attended was the Multicultural Eid Festival and Fair held annually at Fairfield Showground. For Muslims Eid-ul-Fitr marks the end of the month long fast of Ramadan and is a time for celebrations, feasting, family and a new outfit.

Pictured is Rebecca Kay who recently ran as an independent candidate for Bankstown in the State Election. Rebecca describes her style as modern and conservative, classical and classy and is pictured here wearing a dress and headscarf from Integrity Boutique in Bankstown Centro.

Post by Glynis Jones
Curator fashion & dress
Design & society

Photography by Sotha Bourn
© All rights reserved

Be my Valentine ( the model’s story)

2012-01-19T01:11:11Z

This photograph shows New York celebrity milliner, Mr John, with model Elaine Johannsen who is wearing a panne cap with heart-shaped decorations. The hat was part of Mr John’s Lucky in Love fall and winter collection of 1953.

Elaine Johannsen features in several other photographs from Mr John’s studio published previously on Photo of the Day. When Jennifer Karmel, her granddaughter, discovered these photographs on the blog, she contacted the museum and kindly provided information about her grandmother’s life and career.

Elaine Ethel Johannsen was studying millinery design at The Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City when she won a beauty contest, “Miss Surfmaid of 1950″. The prize included a trip to Paris and set Elaine on her path to a modelling career. A photograph of Elaine Johannsen in Paris with her mother was even published here in the Sunday Herald on October 1, 1950.

Elaine Johannsen was from Brooklyn and was discovered by Ruth Roman on the beach in New York. She began working for Mr. John shortly after when a friend dared her to apply for a job as a designer. She was asked to model instead of design and worked for Mr John until sometime after her wedding to William Martin in 1954, the year after this photograph was taken. Mr John designed her bridal veil. Elaine Johannsen Martin eventually went back to school, earned her MS in Education and became a teacher.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian, with thanks to Jennifer Karmel

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Australia, 1864

2012-02-12T11:17:28Z

This photograph of a man and woman is marked ‘Australia, 1864’, indicating that the intended audience was elsewhere. The subjects may have had the portrait done as a memento of their visit or to send to relatives or friends in another country.

The photograph is one of a pair; the other image, posted on Photo of the Day last week, shows the man in this photograph with another man, both of them standing. The inscription on this image is on the left hand side, whereas on the other image it is on the right side. This may have been intended to create a more pleasing and balanced effect when the images were displayed together.

Ambrotypes, or collodiotypes, were a specially processed collodian negative on glass with a black backing of paper, cloth or paint to make it look like a positive. They were usually presented in a velvet-lined leather case which protected the fragile glass and made them more portable. The small size of the images, (this on is 90mm x 65mm) along with the elaborate mounts and cases combine to give them a jewel-like quality, as can be seen in the image below.

At the time the photograph was taken Australia was experiencing a boom due to the gold rushes. Photography studios proliferated and ambrotype portraits like this one were relatively inexpensive and accessible.

The hand-painting of details like gold jewellery onto the surface of the image, as can be seen in the brooch or pendant worn by the woman, was a common practice in photographer’s studios at the time.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian
Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Classical plaque of Æsculapius and Hygeia

2012-02-10T02:12:11Z

This photograph is of a plaque carved from ivory between 200 and 400 AD and when taken it was in a private collection in Switzerland. It depicts Æsculapius and Hygeia, Æsculapius is wearing drapery that hangs from his left shoulder to below his knees, leaving the right side of his chest bare, and sandals on his feet.

In his right hand he is holding what looks like a giant fir cone, and in his left hand is a club, the base of which is resting on the ground with a serpent twining up it. Hygeia, fully clothed, stands to his right, holding a snake in her right hand, and apparently a large conch in her left hand. In the background is part of a building with a wide dressed arch.

This photo-mechanical print is one of the 24 Woodburytypes pasted into J. O. Westwood’s 1876 publication, ‘Fictile [casts of] Ivories in the South Kensington Museum’.

Spirit of jang-in: treasures of Korean metal craft – last weekend

2012-02-11T00:20:31Z

This photograph was taken during one of the public programs held in association with the exhibition, Spirit of jang-in : treasures of Korean metal craft. The photographer has used a shallow depth of field to focus attention on the dancer in the centre of the frame.

The dancers, using their fans, are performing a traditional Buchaechum, in which they represent images like flowers, butterflies and waves. Their colourful costumes are known as hanbok.

Spirit of jang-in traces the development of metal craft from ancient artisans to the spectacular ‘kingdoms of gold’ of the Silla royalty, the influence of Buddhism on craft skills and practice, the simple beauty of everyday objects, and the impact of the dark days of the early 20th century. Reflecting a contemporary spirit of jang-in, a selection of works from Korean artists living in Korea and Australia is also featured.

Don’t miss Spirit of jang-in : treasures of Korean metal craft.. The last weekend activities will include artist Joungmee Do demonstrating traditional inlay techniques and a jegichagi, (Korean game) challenge.

1864 Ambrotype

2012-02-09T07:14:06Z

This is one of the Ambrotypes that we hold in the Museum collection. Our Curator Geoff Barker states;

This photograph is significant because it is one of the few surviving hand-painted ambrotypes with links to Australia. While millions of these ambrotype photographs were produced around the world and many thousands in Australia remarkably few have survived that can be linked to Australian society during the 1860s. Although the sitters in the portrait are currently unidentified the museum recognises the importance of maintaining its collection of ambrotypes as examples of the fashion and early photographic processes in Australia in this period. This is particularly the case with this photograph as ‘Australia 1864′ has been etched into the glass covering the photograph and it is hoped that research may at some future date identify the sitters.

No known copyright restrictions

Mining history – Mount Boppy Gold Mine

2012-02-08T11:18:46Z

Gold has played a vital role in the development and prosperity of Australia ever since the famous goldrushes of the 1850s. This image shows a view of the Mount Boppy Gold Mine at Canbelego east of Cobar in northwest New South Wales. Mount Boppy was one of the most successful gold mining ventures in Australia in the early part of the twentieth century.

By the 1900s the time of the ‘digger’ striking it rich on the goldfields was long gone. Serious capital investment, heavy industrial equipment and well organised processing were required to access the riches held deeper in the earth. The Mount Boppy Gold-mining company was formed in London in 1900 with 110,000 one pound shares – a considerable capital investment for the time. Mining commenced in 1901 and by the end of 1911 shareholders had received a 350% return on their investment.

From 1901 to 1922 the Mount Boppy Mine produced 13.5 tonnes of gold from about one million tonnes of mined ore. In 1905 the mine employed 300 mine and supported the nearby town of Canbelego with a population of 1,500 people. It is estimated that the mine contributed 50,000 pounds per annum to the New South Wales economy.

The Museum holds a series of images of gold mining and processing at Mount Boppy dating from 1905.

Ref: Ken McQueen, ‘The Mount Boppy Gold Mine, NSW: A leader in its Day and More to Come’ Journal of Australasian Mining History, Vol 3 September 2005.

Faith Fashion Fusion

2012-02-07T05:30:59Z

Over the past year staff at the Museum have been developing content for the exhibition Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim women’s style in Australia opening in May this year. From streetstyle to red carpet dresses, the exhibition will explore the emerging modest fashion market and the work of a new generation of Australian clothing brands offering stylish clothing for Muslim and non-Muslim women.

Through filmed interviews and photo shoots we have been capturing the stories and creative process behind some of these fashion labels. Our first photography session documented Hijab House’ fashion shoot for its mid summer 2010 campaign. Established in 2010 by Tarik Houchar Hijab House was the first Australian Muslim women’s fashion retailer to open inside a mainstream shopping centre and it was their striking marketing images that made the store stand out in the busy mall environment. Tarik commented that initially he would

see a lot of non-Muslim shoppers walk past and look up and seem amazed at that kind of product being offered in a suburban mall. It was challenging at first, but people are now very accepting of it. They love the concept and they love the accessibility of our brand.

Tarik conceived the ‘You’re late for Tea’ collection as pretty and playful and themed his shoot around the tea party in Alice in Wonderland noting the theme

is very culturally relevant because obviously Muslim women can’t drink things like alcohol, so tea and social engagements are very important for our culture.

This image shows models Edem Dokli, Anastasia Zhelobovskaya and Giarne Wedes posed as if about to take tea – all that is missing is the tea set. Tarik was inspired by the work of Swedish illustrator Lovisa Burfitt so in post production had the photographs overlaid with text and the accoutrements of a tea party. The final image appeared on Hijab House’ Facebook page and as a huge graphic in the window of Hijab House at Bankstown Centro, Sydney.

Bush butcher’s shop

2012-02-05T23:08:34Z

This photograph bush butcher’s shop reveals just how basic the selling of meat could be in the late 1800s. Cattle and sheep were slaughtered out the back and whole carcasses hung out the front while the butcher kept his chopping block inside the one-room shop.

What’s in store: a history of retailing in Australia, Kimberley Webber and Ian Hoskins with Joy McCann, Powerhouse Publishing, 2003, p. 44

Henry King, (1855-1923) was a successful Sydney photographer best known for his view and portrait work. As his career progressed he incorporated landscape photography into his repertoire. He won several international medals, including a bronze at the Chicago exhibition of 1893. Many of King’s best known views of Sydney date from the 1880s and by 1890 his work was held in high regard throughout the colonies. The Powerhouse Museum Tyrrell collection includes 1,334 photographs by Henry King.

Post by Kathy Hackett, Photo Librarian

Photograph by Henry King. Tyrrell Collection
No known copyright restrictions