An important source of inspiration for Austral-
ian Documentary photographers was the photo-
essay, a new format in which writing was combined
with images. Local outlets for Documentary work
were limited with few magazines offering the
opportunity of extended photo-essays. Talented
photographers such as the Swiss-born Axel Poign-
ant persisted for a time producing bodies of work
that looked at distinctively Australian subjects,
such as the natural environment and people living
in the outback. He was particularly interested in
the lives of Aboriginal people and produced
thoughtful series of work in this area often publish-
ing his images in the locally producedWalkabout
magazine. But despite the success of his bookPic-
caninny Walkabout(1957), Poignant eventually left
Australia to find work overseas.
David Moore, probably Australia’s best-known
photo-journalist, managed to sustain his career by
regularly contributing to international journals
including Life, Time, andPicture Post. One of
Moore’s most celebrated images was Migrants
Arriving in Sydney—a photograph that captures
the mixed emotions of joy, anticipation, and anxi-
ety on the faces of those arriving for the first time in
Australia. The photograph also summed up a spe-
cific moment in social history, when Australia’s
migration policies were relaxed sufficiently to
allow people to settle from a broader range of
European countries.
The humanistic approach of Documentary work
reached its height internationally with theFamily of
Manexhibition mounted by the Museum of Mod-
ern Art in New York in 1955. This exhibition,
which included the work of David Moore and
Laurence le Guay, toured to Australia in 1959
and was viewed by record crowds. Following the
flurry of interest in Documentary practice, the
1960s were a relatively quiet time for creative
photography in Australia. An exception was
‘‘Group M,’’ a group of committed amateur photo-
graphers in Melbourne, including Albert Brown
and George Bell, who mounted a series of exhibi-
tions that explored documentary and social realist
issues. Mervyn Bishop, Australia’s first profes-
sional Aboriginal photographer, also made a sig-
nificant contribution in this period. Bishop began
his long career as a press photographer in 1962
with the major daily newspaper, theSydney Morn-
ing Herald and was awarded the coveted News
Photographer of the Year Award in 1971.
In the 1960s, other Australian professional
photographers also continued their work in the
fields of fashion, architecture, and industry with
one highly significant practitioner being Wolfgang
Sievers. Sievers, who had been trained at the Con-
tempora School for Applied Arts in Berlin, arrived
in Australia in the late 1930s and applied his experi-
ence of modernism to his industrial and architec-
tural assignments. He created many powerful, even
theatrical images that often showed the interrela-
tionship of workers and the products of modernity.
In common with many other countries, a new
energizing spirit infused Australian photography
in the 1970s. A wave of social and political change
swept through society and with it a desire for more
contemporary means of creative expression. Many
artists considered the camera to be a powerful aes-
thetic tool without the historical ‘‘baggage’’ of
other mediums and one that offered a fresh way to
express their social, political, and creative concerns.
The surge of interest in photography was met by
institutional funding with the Labour government
of the time injecting funds into art schools, many of
which began to include photography in their curri-
culum for the first time. This period saw the foun-
dation of collections of photography at public
galleries. In 1967, the National Gallery of Victoria
established the first separate curatorial Department
of Photography in Australia and provided funds
for a broadly based collection to be formed. It also
began a program of Australian and international
photographic exhibitions bringing the medium to
the attention of a wide local audience. The Austral-
ian National Gallery, Canberra, made its first
acquisitions of photographs in 1972 founding the
basis for an important, wide-ranging collection;
and the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney
established its Department of Photography in 1974
and began to build a strong collection. In 1974, the
Australian Centre for Contemporary Photography
in Sydney opened its doors as a venue for the
exhibition, instruction, and promotion of the me-
dium. The 1970s also saw the establishment of
commercial galleries that specialized in photogra-
phy, most notably in Melbourne, and important
corporate sponsorship of photography including
the Philip Morris Arts Grant.
Documentary photography continued to be pop-
ular among artists but was now often used to dif-
ferent ends. Carol Jerrems and Max Pam adopted a
collaborative approach in their documentary work
based on the consent of their subjects rather than
simply ‘‘taking’’ portraits. In their distinct ways,
both Jerrems and Pam captured the mood of the
times: Jerrems taking portraits of a young Austral-
ian urban generation and Pam following the hippie
trail to the East and a world of new experiences.
The impact of counter-culture politics and fem-
inism also brought a distinctive range of subjectAUSTRALIA, PHOTOGRAPHY IN