On the 21 September 1922 an eclipse of the sun passed across the centre of Australia providing optimum conditions for observations. This photograph was taken by one of the members of the Wollal Eclipse expedition in Western Australia and in it we can see the team unloading stores.
This was supervised by the Australian naval party under Commander Quick but the shallow nature of the approach to Wollal meant the boats were anchored three or four miles from the high-water line. This meant that after stores were brought to shore they were transported by the donkey wagons to the observation site. This activity took three days to finish being finally completed and captured, as you can see, by a cinematographer who accompanied the expedition.
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Pos by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator
One of the members in our Modern Times group on Flickr took this interesting image of the Sydney Opera House. The description with this photo reads:
‘The Sydney Opera House as seen reflected in a Circular Quay restaurant window, Green/black duotone.’
This effect is beautiful and an unusual depiction of one of Australia’s iconic architectural designs that was fundamental to modernism in Australia. On the 25th March a memorial service was held to honour the Danish architect for his great achievement in creating the impressive landmark. You can read an interview about this on ABC 7.30 Report
Photography by Puddles
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic
This gorgeous image of a small boy on a ladder was added to the Commons on Flickr this week. This image comes from our Phillips photographic collection. We still have a few more loads to go before the whole collection is all loaded to the Commons.
There have been suggestions that the Phillips collection of photographs was created by Harry Phillips, (1873-1944), an early twentieth century photographer born in Ballarat and best known for his photographs of the Blue Mountains. Recent museum research has shown that the photographer Harry J. Phillips, the uncle of Raymond W. Phillips, was born in Sydney in 1872. There does not appear to be any connection between the families of the Ballarat-born Harry Phillips and Harry J. Phillips.
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Today you have a choice of participating in Earth Hour , the global effort of voting against climate change, by switching off all your lights between 8:30-9:30pm. Earth Hour started in Sydney in 2007 when approximately 2.2 million homes and businesses joined in by switching of their lights for one hour. With the success of this campaign it is estimated that 1 billion people worldwide will participate in Earth Hour this year.
If you take any photos during Earth Hour then you should consider loading them to this group on Flickr called Earth Hour 2009 Global .
The beautiful light pictured in this image, titled ‘Phiball’, was made by Andrew Last and was featured in the exhibition Smart works: design and the handmade , held at the Powerhouse Museum in 2007.
Photography by Jean-Francois Lanzarone
© All rights reserved
This is the 500th post for Photo of the Day and although this is not the most exciting image it seems appropriate plus it was taken out the front of the Musuem, as we are located at 500 Harris St. But rather than tell you more about Photo of the Day I am interested in getting your feedback on the type of images, and other content, that you would like to see more of, or what you find interesting so that I can develop this blog further. The best suggestion/comment will receive a free, hand-crafted print that you can select from any Powerhouse image posted to Photo of the Day. This print will be produced on the beautiful archival paper that we have recently discovered.
Photography by Paula Bray
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0
On the 24th of November 1874 a group of Sydney astronomers landed their pre-fabricated observatory, tents, instruments, bricks and cement at Two-Fold Bay in New South Wales. They were their to observe the Transit of Venus and over the next few days managed to lay down the building piers for the 7.5 inch Merz telescope and erect the wooden observatory we can see here with the numbered planks.
Sitting in the chair is Rev. Scott Sydney Observatory’s first astronomer and standing next to him is W. J. MacDonnell next to the 4.5 inch Cooke equatorial. Further along we can see Mr. Watkins next to a 3.5 inch equatorial, Mr. Sharkey a photographer from the Government Printing Office and finally, in the background, the unnamed carpenter who accompanied the expedition.
Photography by John Sharkey, Eden, New South Wales, 1874
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Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator
This image was taken during the installation of the exhibition Inspired! Design across time. Inspired highlights the different ways designers, makers, industries and entrepreneurs work and interact to make objects. This is a large permanent exhibition space and required much behind the scenes involvement to produce. This image shows one part of this process, the installation of the objects that is done by our conservators and registration staff. A vast range of objects had to be moved into showcases including, furniture, fashion, textiles, graphics, glass, ceramics and jewellery covering design, technology and cultural history.
Photography by Jean-François Lanzarone
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0
No known copyright restrictions
Our latest batch uploaded to the Commons project on Flickr included 15 images from the Tyrrell photographic collection. We still have a few more images from the Phillips collection to load but thought we would intersperse them with a Tyrrell batch. Posting this particular image has resulted in one of our members finding a great contemporary comparison image and included this in a comment on our image in Flickr.
This is a contemporary comparison image photographed by one of our Flickr members, Yewyeni titled ‘Ebor Falls’
License: Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
Ebor Falls is located in Ebor between Coffs Harbour and Armidale, New South Wales. This area is a well-known tourist attraction with viewing platforms and walking tracks.
Using this search on Flickr you can see other images taken at this location.
This is another great image from the David Mist photographic archive that we are posting on Photo of the Day. David has kindly allowed us to share these images with you. This was taken around 1969 on a street in Surry Hills highlighting the advertising signs that were featured all over the side of the building. A photo, similar to this one, appears in the publication titled ‘Sydney, A Book of Photographs’ published in 1969 that appears with the caption:
“Conservative Martin Place has resisted some of the worst elements of the change visible elsewhere in the city.”
David produced a vast body of work for this publication and it is a great record of the time with many candid street and suburb scenes depicting life in Sydney. David seems to have a unique way of capturing moments of daily life without being too conspicuous.
If you recognise this street in Surry Hills then we would love to hear about it!
Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved
A behind-the-scenes image showing one of our conservators working on the Strasburg Clock model. This clock model has been in the collection for over a century. It was built by a young Sydney clockmaker, Richard Bartholomew between 1887 and 1889. It was bought the following year by the NSW government and displayed at the Technological Museum, which is what you used to be known as.
Photography by Jean-francois Lanzarone
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0
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