The inaugural exhibition in the Chau Chak Wing Museum’s photography gallery examines the first photographic studios in New South Wales, Australia and the characters who ran them. The way we visualise much of the 19th century is framed by the work of commercial photographic studios. The new technology of photography, invented in 1839, led to the rise of these new businesses which found commercial opportunities in sales of photographs, especially portraits. The Business of Photography turns the lens onto the commercial studio, exploring the stories behind particular New South Wales photographers. Original photographs drawn from the Macleay Collection of historic photography are featured.
Event type: Lecture
Date and time: Thursday 11 March 6.30pm (0730 GMT)
Free event
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Edward McDonald, the publican of the Forth & Clyde hotel at The Rocks, obviously had a strong personality. It still twinkles through his daguerreotype portrait now in the collection of the Chau Chak Wing Museum. Wearing a loud check jacket and a striped waistcoat, he adopts a Pickwickian air as he man-spreads for the camera. The George Street studio McDonald visited in 1848 was run by a photographer with an equally strong personality — J. W. Newland. He had arrived in Sydney from New Orleans via Central and South America and the Pacific, before eventually moving on to Van Diemen’s Land and Calcutta. Newland’s studio also hosted his ‘Daguerrean Gallery’, and sold tickets to his ‘magnificent exhibitions of dissolving views’ at the nearby Royal Victoria Theatre.
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