Monthly Archive for September, 2008

This image is a reproduction from a glass plate negative from the Tyrrell photographic collection. We have almost 8000 glass plates in this collection and a selection of these have been added to the Commons project on Flickr where members can tag, comment and share stories about these images.

This image shows the colonnade of the GPO building at Martin Place in the city. This building was designed by the Colonial Architect James Barnet and opened in 1874. It replaced a building the postal service had used since 1830. The second stage of building the GPO extended through to Pitt Street in 1887 and included the clock tower. It was constructed using Pyrmont stone and has an open arcade on three sides. Additional work was done in 1927 and again in 1942.

Photography by Henry King, Sydney, Australia, c. 1880-1900.

No known copyright restriction

This image shows flooded land around Bourke, taken from the air by photographer Sue Stafford. Sue travelled to Bourke to photograph Nancy Bird Walton’s visit for the exhibition and publication, Women with Wings: portraits of Australian women pilots.

This was taken back in 1998 and according to The ABC’s The World Today the town of Bourke situated within the Darling River floodplain is subject to periodic flooding but up until recently the town was experiencing the worst drought ever recorded. It had not rained in Bourke for nearly seven years and the locals were greatly concerned for the welfare of the district. There is an interesting transcript from an interview with some locals on the ABC site.

File# 00224670

Photography by Sue Stafford
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

This image was taken for the exhibition The Great Wall of China: dynasties, dragons and warriors. It shows a local resident pointing to an inscription on a plaque on the exterior of Bell Tower within the Ming Dynasty fortress. Jean-François spent a month in China photographing the landscape and the Great Wall for a photographic immersive that was shown in the exhibition.

According to Travel China Guide the tower is located in the centre of the city capital, built in 1384 by Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang. This is the largest tower of its kind at 36 metres high. The brick base that you can see in this image is 35.5 metres long and 8.6 metres in height. There are decorative engravings on the doors that depict fashion of Ming and Qing Dynasties and each side of the base has these large arched doors.

File #00×03791

Photography by Jean-François Lanzarone.
© All rights reserved

This image was taken from the top of the diving tower at the Centenary pool complex in Brisbane. It was photographed earlier this year when a Musuem photographer went to Brisbane to photograph this amazing space-age complex for the photographic immersive featured in our exhibition on modernism. The city architect James Birrell built this public pool complex in 1959. It is an incredible looking piece of architecture, reminiscent of the ‘Jetsons’. A couple of us at work thought this was quite an amusing photograph because if you look at it sideways it looks a little bit similar to the old computer game ‘Space Invaders’.

File #00z29047

Photography by Jean-Francois Lanzarone.
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0

This underwater image of a swimmer at the Rudder and Grout designed North Sydney Pool was taken earlier this year when we decided we would produce a photographic immersive for our current exhibition on modernism in Australia. Jean-Francois hired an underwater unit for a digital SLR and spent quite a bit of time in the water photographing swimmers and some remaining original tiling of the era. This was quite a feat as it was approaching winter and the water was not that warm.

Photography by Jean-Francois Lanzarone
© All rights reserved