In front of the camera

This very romantic image related to the Bruno Benini archive was taken by Gerd Rosskamp in 1957, at the time he was sharing a studio with Benini, and shows the fashion photographer stepping into the role of model with Wendy Martin in a nightclub setting.

Bruno Benini, although best-known as a fashion photographer, was noted for his good looks and very elegant appearance and in the 1950s he also worked as a model for some of Melbourne’s top photographers, including Helmut Newton, Henry Talbot, Athol Shmith and Gerd Rosskamp. During this time he augmented his skills in lighting and fashion photography and was also inspired to experiment with locations beyond the studio, taking his camera to streets, nightclubs and parks. The Benini archive contains other images in which Bruno appears as a model.

German-born fashion photographer Gerhard (Gerd) Rosskamp (1928-2007) was also a contemporary of Henry Talbot and Bruno Benini. He worked in Melbourne during the 1950s and 1970s, and Berlin during the 1960s and again from 1986 till his death in 2007.

Happy Valentine’s Day from Photo of the Day!

Photograph by Gerhard Rosskamp

Reference: Creating the look: Benini and fashion photography. Anne-Marie Van de Ven with Hazel Benini, Powerhouse Publishing, 2010.

Tags: couples, kiss, models, photographers

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.