Monthly Archive for October, 2008

Yesterday I promised to post an image of the Harry Seidler designed Ian Thorpe Aquatic centre which is located just over the road from the Museum in Ultimo. So here is one image of many that we took whilst we were experimenting with photographing spaces and sites representing modernism from a contemporary perspective. This pool complex is a really interesting building to photograph with its mix of materials and shapes. There is a lot of glass, expansive walls of reflective white tiles and a huge cantilevered, arched roof. The arched roof on the interior has a series of mirrors on it which reflect the water from the pool below. At night this building lights up like a huge light box and would make an interesting night shot.

File #00z28707

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

This minimalist black and white image of the Sydney Opera House, designed by Jørn Utzon, was photographed whilst we started exploring sites that were important during modernism in Australia. Our photographers shot some sites in Sydney taken from a contemporary perspective for our exhibition on modernism in Australia. You can see some images of this World Heritage Listed building during construction on the Sydney Opera House website.

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

One of our photographers, Jean-francois Lanzarone, spent a month in China in 2006 photographing the Great Wall and the landscape for an exhibition. He recalls

‘A sand storm had reached Jiayuguan in China during the night on the 14th of May.
In the morning, the sky was white, the light flat and the sand from the Gobbi was still carried away by a very strong wind. I packed the camera into a water proof case and went to photograph the section of the Great Wall cut by the Jiayuguan-Dunhuang Highway. When I arrived to the site, the sun started to pierce and I was confident we’ll have a sunny day to photograph all the other places around Jiayuguan for the Museum exhibition The Great Wall of China: dynasties, dragons and warriors . But the sun never managed to completely disintegrate this white sky and all the other views were shot on that day with an unusual soft filtered grey light.’

File #00×03695

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

This image comes from the David Mist photographic archives acquired by the Museum in the 1990s. The model on a bicycle was taken beside the Australia Square fountain in 1969 for the book ‘Made in Australia’ where it appears on page 16. After training and working in London, David Mist moved to Australia and worked as a photographer from the early 1960s capturing fashion and Australian life. He will be giving a talk today at the Museum about his work as part of our weekly Talks After Noon series when he will discuss the work he did in the sixties, share his stories from behind the lens and more. This is on Level 2 from 12.30pm.

You can view additional photographs from the Powerhouse Museum’s David Mist archives in the ‘David Mist: Swinging Sydney’ exhibition at the Museum of Sydney.

Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved

This great image of a section of the Sydney Opera House comes from one of the members in our Modern Times group on Flickr. The great composition of this image highlights the curves of the front of the building designed by the Danish architect Jørn Utzon who won a competition with preliminary sketches to go on to have his architectural design built on the waterfront of Sydney Harbour.

This photographer has posted many photos to our group highlighting modernism in Australia taken from a contemporary perspective.

Photography by roryrory
License: Creative Commons Attribution- Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic