Monthly Archive for June, 2008

Page 3 of 3

Road to Broken Hill

Published by imageservices on June 10, 2008 0 Comments

This classic outback road shot is of the highway leading to Broken Hill and was taken in 2006 when a photographer was sent there to scan the Albert Morris Glass plate negative collection for the touring exhibition: Greening the Silver city: seeds of bush regeneration. Not only did the photographer get to work with this great collection he also went out on location shooting stock shots around Broken Hill. The exhibition is currently on at Mount Tomah Botanic Garden until 18 June.

File #00z26577

Photography by Ryan Hernandez
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

Town centre of Tingha

Published by imageservices on June 9, 2008 0 Comments

This was taken whilst shooting for the Indigenous women’s exhibition Yinalung yenu: women’s journey. This is the main street in the regional town of Tingha, what was once a small mining town, near Inverell in north western NSW. Tingha was once the largest tin producing area in NSW which led to a population growth to the area but by the 1900′s the mining boom had finished. The population of Tingha now is around 800. Photo of the Day came across this interesting story in the Sydney Morning Herald about a film that was made just before we were in Tingha shooting for the exhibition.

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Photography by Paula Bray
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

The new flagstaff as seen from the interior of the Sydney Observatory

Published by imageservices on June 8, 2008 0 Comments

This was taken just after the new flagstaff had been installed at the Sydney Observatory. It has been installed on the wall of Fort Phillip and features flags that display information about temperature and visible astronomical objects. There will also be colourful historic and contemporary flags flown.

Yesterday the rain magically seemed to clear and the 150th celebrations at the Observatory were enjoyed by many. The Time Ball dropped at 12pm accompanied by an extremely loud cannon then the astronomical flags were raised on the new flagstaff. To see more images from the day visit the Sydney Observatory blog

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

Happy 150th Birthday!

Published by imageservices on June 7, 2008 0 Comments

This image titled The Observatory, 1859 by Kerry and Co is a reproduction of a glass plate negative from our Tyrrell photographic collection. We now have over 500 images from this collection on the Commons project on Flickr where people can leave tags and comments regarding the content of the images. We are getting a fantastic level of contribution from other members. There is a lot of this material that has never been fully catalogued and now the public can help us with this massive task. If you have any more information regarding this image, let us know!

Today we are celebrating the Sydney Observatory turning 150. There has been a host of activity up there recently, installation of the new flagstaff, repairing the Sydney sandstone, establishing new garden beds and restoration of the telescope. Yesterday the time ball was dropped at 12pm and the official birthday was announced. Today there are many activities going on up at Observatory Hill to celebrate Sydney Observatory’s 150th.

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The new flagstaff going in

Published by imageservices on June 6, 2008 0 Comments

This was taken during the installation of our new flagstaff that has recently been installed at the Sydney Observatory. The Observatory originally had two giant flagstaffs on either side of the building that would communicate information about the origin and types of ships entering Sydney Harbour. Through the generosity of the Bruce & Joy Reid Foundation this southern flagstaff has been reinstated. They will fly historic and astronomical flags for the first time to mark the Observatory’s 150th birthday.

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

Sydney Observatory

Published by imageservices on June 5, 2008 0 Comments

I wonder what this gentleman was contemplating whilst relaxing on the grass out the front of the Sydney Observatory back in c.1880-1923. The time ball had dropped and you can clearly see the vine growing all over the tower, which is no longer covering the beautiful Sydney sandstone. This image comes from our Tyrrell photographic collection that is part of the Commons project on Flickr. This image has only been on Flickr for one week and has been viewed 85 times, received tags and one of our contacts has wished us a happy 150th birthday. If you have any images from the same view we would love you to post them in our Tyrrell Today group on Flickr and we can compare them.

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Looking out the dome

Published by imageservices on June 4, 2008 0 Comments

This image was taken from the Sydney Observatory’s north dome looking out towards the time ball. It was shot at 1/125th second, at f13 with at a focal length of 21mm. Flash was required to light the inside of the dome to balance the exposure of the exterior light. Over the next few days we are going to blog images of the Sydney Observatory, some new and some historic, from our Tyrrell photographic collection, to celebrate the 150th anniversary.

The Observatory, designed by colonial architect Alexander Dawson, was constructed between 1855 ad 1858 out of Sydney sandstone. Over time this has required repair and a major program of restoration has been happening up at the Observatory recently. This coming weekend there will be a host of activities up at Sydney Observatory celebrating 150 years.

File #00z26855

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

Looking towards Sanwei mountains

Published by imageservices on June 3, 2008 0 Comments

This shot of the Sanwei Mountains was taken with our medium format studio gear. A Museum photographer spent a month carrying this heavy equipment around China photographing the Great wall and landscape for our exhibition The Great Wall of China: dynasties, dragons and warriors that we showed in 2006. This camera was chosen because of the 22 megapixel file size that we could get from the digital back. The sensor is twice the size of the digital SLR which meant bigger pixels and more of them. The next step down would have been our 35mm digital SLR that is 11 megapixels. A lot of the images were stitched together to form large scale panoramas and we needed the larger file sizes to achieve this. The images were shot using the raw file settings and then converted into Adobe Digital Negative (DNG) files. So the photographer opted for the larger file size but consequently had to lug this heavy equipment all over China. This is one image of around 3000 that were shot on this trip.

File no. 00×03542

Photography by Jean-François Lanzarone
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Architectural detail, Powerhouse Museum

Published by imageservices on June 2, 2008 0 Comments

This graphic shot of the exterior of the Museum was taken along the colonnade that faces Harris Street. Using the wide angle lens and isolating a section of the building has produced this shot that highlights the curve of the corrugated roof against the sharp slanted glass ceiling of the colonnade. Isolating sections of the built environment can be a great way to experiment with using wide angle lenses. This building was designed around the shell of the old Ultimo power station and our doors opened to the public in 1988. This building was designed by architect Lionel Glendenning.

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Photography by Jane Townsend.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

Lights in the Zero Gravity Space Lab

Published by imageservices on June 1, 2008 0 Comments

This shot was taken using a long exposure so the lights accentuate the feeling of movement in the Zero Gravity Space Lab. This is taken inside the unit looking out. The unit rotates slowly so that that you have the feeling that you are floating in space. It is an interesting place to experiment with photography especially with longer exposures and wide angle lenses. There are a lot of lights inside the lab that look great when photographed below a 30th of second so that they form light trails. The Zero Gravity Space Lab has been installed in our newly refurbished Space exhibition.

File #00z26721

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0