116
commercial photographers Thomas Barnes and his son
(up to about 1888) and Roderick Johnstone from 1883.
Barnardo also sold photographs on cards, reproduced
them in pamphlets and in his house journal, Night and
Day. By 1905, the Department had taken over 55,000
pictures, many of which still survive at Barnardo’s.
John Taylor
BARNETT, WALTER H. (1862–1934)
Australian portrait photographer
Henry Walter Barnett was born in Melbourne, Australia,
on 25th January 1862, his parents having moved there
from London probably in the late 1840s. In 1875, only
13 years old, he left school and joined the most suc-
cessful photographic studio in Melbourne, Stewart and
Co. This business had started some 12 years before and
had grown very rapidly. The business was clearly a gold
mine, but the resulting product was standardised, lacking
distinction. “I have never seen a print of Stewart’s worth
a second glance,” wrote one of Barnett’s later protégé’s,
Jack Cato (Cato, Story, 88).
It was here that Barnett fi rst met the young Australian
artist, Tom Roberts, who joined the fi rm in 1877. This
was the start of an artistic relationship that was to extend
over fi fty years. Roberts was to become recognised as
“the father of Australian landscape painting.”
In 1880, Barnett moved to Hobart, Tasmania, to set up
his fi rst commercial venture, a studio he owned together
with Harold Riise. He stayed for two years, and then,
recognising that he needed wider experience and new
ideas if he was to make his mark, he took the bold step
of travelling around the world, working as he went for
leading photographers of the day: in San Francisco (I.
W. Taber), then Chicago (Joseph W. Gehrig), then New
York, and fi nally London, where he was on the staff of
the court photographer, W. and D. Downey. Barnett was
operator at sittings of the Prince of Wales (later Edward
VII), “and dukes and duchesses and titles galore,” ac-
cording to Cato. (Cato, Story, 90).
By this time, Barnett had wider skills than any
portrait photographer in Australia, and in 1885 he
returned home, to Sydney, and opened Falk Studios,
which quickly gained a reputation as the best of its kind
in the city. Barnett’s rise to the top was driven by two
main factors: he pioneered in Australia a new look in
portrait photography, and he displayed masterly skills
in marketing and public relations.
His new look enabled him to present his sitters with a
paradoxical mix of glamour and realism. Before his ar-
rival on the scene, Australian photographers had gone for
a bright, fl at lighting system, giving the sitters a white,
shell-like appearance. Barnett introduced dramatic
side-lights, emphasising bone structure and enabling
his sitters’ individual personalities to shine through.
As Jack Cato noted: “Walter Barnett in Sydney was
discarding retouching altogether for men. He was the
fi rst to deliberately photograph the course, deep-toned
texture of the skin; to show the bone structure of the
skull, to get the sculpturesque modelling of the human
head” (Cato, Story, 91). Other studios usually took just
one position of each sitter, sometimes two. Barnett used
up to a dozen different positions, and for a really major
celebrity he might take fi fty.
Barnett’s relationships with an extended group of
Australian artists were formed around this time, amongst
them Arthur Streeton. Streeton was impressed by the
photographer and his work: “He is and very artistic
and has good appreciation for the beautiful” (Streeton
to Roberts, April 1890).
A major strand of his work at this time was actors
and actresses. With major visiting celebrities, Barnett
typically negotiated exclusive rights to photograph them
and to market their pictures to an eager public. Amongst
these was the great French actress, Sarah Bernhardt
(1891). So successful was his work for her that for many
years she continued to order copies from whatever part
of the world she happened to be performing in.
High society in Sydney fl ocked to Barnett’s studio,
including leading politicians. His 1892 portrait of the
premier of New South Wales, Sir Henry Parkes, is one
of his most memorable images. Other important sitters
included the writers Robert Louis Stevenson (1893),
Mark Twain (1896) and Banjo Patterson (c 1895)—who
wrote the original poem, “Waltzing Matilda.”
In 1895, Barnett opened a new studio in Melbourne,
but it was around this time that he conceived the notion
of returning to try his luck in London. On a return trip
from there in 1896, he met in Bombay a young French-
man, Marius Sestier. A cameraman for the pioneering
movie fi lm company, Lumiere, Sestier’s Indian fi lm had
not developed properly. Barnett proposed that he come
to Sydney—and this he did, leading to the fi rst movie
fi lm to be shot and developed in Australia.
Moving decisively to London in 1897, Barnett opened
a studio in Knightsbridge, quickly establishing himself
as one of the leading portrait photographers. In 1899,
he was invited to join the infl uential photo-secessionist
group, The Linked Ring. Two years later he became a
founder member of the Professional Photographers As-
sociation, becoming a vice president shortly thereafter,
and by 1903 he had become the only professional to be
elected to the council of the Royal Photographic Society.
Barnett’s artistic goals in his early days in London were
clear: “I have long been conscious of the defi ciencies of
portrait photography. Being an enthusiastic admirer of
English mezzotint... it seemed to me that it might not
be impossible to make photography a humble follower”
(Photography, 22nd June 1899). A collection of his early