On Friday 4 January 1901, the ‘Military and Naval Review of Troops’ was held in the grounds of Centennial Park. The activities began at 10.30 when Lord Hopetoun rode out from the saluting-base to review the 9,374 men of all ranks who took part in the march past.
In this particular image we can see part of the huge crowd which had gathered all through the morning to view the proceedings. This image appears to be of the slopes that flanked the covered stand near the saluting base. Note also the white trousers and white hats of the constables placed around the grounds to ensure no-one was run over.
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Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator
We have just added several images from the Rousel studios archive collection to the Commons on Flickr. The archive represents a significant record of the work of an important Sydney sign writing and graphic design studio from the 1920s and 30s. This image Shows artist Stan Denford painting a portrait of Hollywood film star Ruth Chatterton that was taken sometime in 1930. This was being painted onto the side of an external wall of a theatre in Sydney. The sign on the suspended platform reads, “H. ROUSEL 38 – 42 OXFORD ST CITY.”
Rousel studios archive collection
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This photograph of pilot and architect Sally McCosker was taken at Camden airfield by Powerhouse Museum photographer Sue Stafford as part of the Women with wings exhibition and publication project. Sue also interviewed the pilots and Sally is quoted as follows:
There’s an almost magical sensation being in a glider thousands of feet above the ground – a mixture of intense calm and exhilaration, no sound except the wind whistling by. You don’t feel as if you’re intruding on the air space, you are working with what’s there, with what the birds are using, and to the uninitiated eye there are no clues to how you are managing to stay up there.
The Women with wings project resulted in a collection of 33 photographic portraits of women pilots from around Australia and coincided with the 50th anniversary of the Australian Women Pilots Association (AWPA) in May 2000.
Sue Stafford travelled around Australia for nine months to photograph the 33 women pilots who were selected to represent the national identity of the AWPA and to show a cross-section of Australian aviation, including commercial, military and recreational flying. Sue created the portraits using a medium format RZ 67 Mamiya camera with both colour and black and white film. The dramatic quality of the images was achieved using a studio flash on the pilots in the foreground with saturated colour skies in the background.
Photography by Sue Stafford
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This image, showing a backstreet in the inner suburbs of Sydney, comes from the David Mist photographic archive. This particular shot, from a 35mm black and white negative, was shot for one of David’s publications ‘Sydney a book of Photographs’ that was published in 1969. It appears on page 90 of the book with the caption:
The inner suburbs such as Balmain, Paddington and Potts Point were once high-class residential areas of the city. The wooden and stone buildings on this and the next page hark back to the convict era.
It is always fascinating to choose an image of David’s for Photo of the Day as his archive is full of amazing photographs that cover a range of topics including fashion, other commercial shoots but also his candid shots of street scenes and daily life in and around the city and the inner suburbs, such as this shot.
Photography by David Mist
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This photograph, from the Powerhouse Museum publication Women with Wings shows Mrs Millicent Bryant in 1927, the year she became the first woman to achieve a pilot’s licence in Australia. 1927 was the first year in which light aeroplane clubs in Australia began admitting women members. By the end of the year two more women had gained their ‘A’ (private) licence and by the end of 1929 this number had increased to 18. A further 10 women qualified following Amy Johnson’s arrival in Australia after a solo flight from England in May 1930.
The Women with wings project was the initiative of Powerhouse Museum photographer Sue Stafford. Sue travelled across Australia to produce the 33 photographic portraits of contemporary women pilots, which were then exhibited at the Powerhouse to coincide with the 50th anniversary of the Australian Women Pilots’ Association (AWPA) in May 2000.
The women were selected to represent the national identity of the AWPA and to show a cross-section of Australian aviation, including commercial, military and recreational flying. These portraits and others of pioneer Australian women pilots like Mrs Bryant can be seen in the Women with wings book.
Photograph reproduced courtesy of Mrs Prudence Bryant
This is another great example of a photograph that has been shot by one of our visitors that has just added this image to our new group, Me and the Powerhouse Museum . This was taken in Experimentations and exhibition that highlights how scientific and technological breakthroughs have answered questions and changed many of our ideas about everyday phenomena. In this gallery you can experiment with heat, light, chemistry, electricity and movement.
Photography by kiwikeith
License: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
This photo was taken by one of our previous photographers, Sue Stafford, back in 2004 when Gyuto monks of Tibet were visiting the Powerhouse Museum. For 16 days during the July school holidays the Monks created intricate butter sculptures, modelled by hand from tiny pieces of coloured butter. Flowers, animals and deities combined in a glorious display which, upon completion, as in old Tibet, was destroyed by fire in the Chona Chupa Ceremony on the monk’s final day at the Museum. The monks also created a beautiful two-metre-square sand mandala. The richly coloured ground marble sands from the Himalayas were poured grain by grain to make a complex and engaging image of a perfect world. As part of their final ceremony, attended by 2500 visitors, it was swept away and the sands returned to the waters of the earth.
We have just had another visit by Tibetan monks from the Dakpa Khangtsen Drepung Loseling monastery in the South Indian state of Karnataka who spent eleven days at the Powerhouse Museum in December creating three mandalas out of coloured sand grains. We have produced a time-lapse sequence of the construction of these mandalas that we will be sharing with you soon.
Photography Sue Stafford
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The Federation ‘American Arch’ was on Pitt Street near the intersection of Hunter Street. The American president had been asked to provide troops to the celebrations but as this was not possible the arch remained the United States’ most significant contribution to the ceremony celebrating Federation. The funds for it were raised by subscription with the final design by John Lough and the decoration by the Wunderlich Patent Ceiling and Roofing Company Limited. The plaster head representing the Republic and an American eagle above the arch were both signed by Herr Kretschmar, one Wunderlich’s top modellers.
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Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator
Trainspotting is a colloquial term for the hobby of observing and recording the numbers of railway locomotives. Our new photography competition has been given this term and one of the categories that can be entered is called ‘Trainspotting’ and we want to see photograph’s that show these numbers not just in a literal way but also in a creative manner.
This shot, an example of the type of shot you could submit, shows the number of our locomotive 3265 that was photographed by Marinco in the Eveleigh Railway workshop late last year.
Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0
The reaper-binder was designed in 1858 to cut wheat, oats or barley stalks close to the ground, bind them into sheaves with twine, then drop them onto the ground. Men following behind the machine picked up the sheaves and arranged them to dry in bundles known as stooks. When dry, the sheaves were carted away to make a haystack, and were later threshed to yield their grain, or cut for chaff to feed farm animals. This machine reduced labour costs and allowed farms to expand in size
Photography by Charles Kerry Studio
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Post by Sandra McEwen
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