Yearly Archive for 2008

Page 2 of 37

Tumble turn

Published by imageservices on December 21, 2008 0 Comments


Tumble turn, originally uploaded by Powerhouse Museum.

This underwater shot was taken earlier this year at the Centenary pool complex in Brisbane. This ‘jetson-like’ pool was designed by the city architect James Birrell and was built in 1959. Jean-Francois photographed a few pools underwater for a photographic immersive that he produced for the exhibition Modern Times: the untold story of modernism in Australia. The exhibition is on until February.

File 300z29054

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

Stormtroopers chat

Published by Paula Bray on December 20, 2008 0 Comments

Photo N¼: 00z31290

There are some very funny moments being captured by our photographers of the Star Wars characters who are roaming around the Museum during our new exhibition Star Wars: Where Science Meets Imagination. In this exhibition you can experiment with magnetic levitation devices, manipulate robots, engineer droids and see many of the original costumes from the films.

We have an amazing group of volunteers helping us with this exhibition. You will be welcomed by some of them as you enter the foyer and may find Darth Vader following you up the escalators.

File #00z31290

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

Is this John Norton’s house?

Published by imageservices on December 19, 2008 0 Comments

This image titled ‘Newly built large house, Federation style’ comes from the Phillips photographic collection. This collection consists of 194 glass plate negatives taken in New South Wales and includes family portraits, picnics, playful boxing matches and some general locations shots. One of our Flickr contacts has posted this comment below:

Mala Gabrielle says:

“I think this could be a photo of the notorious newspaper editor John Norton’s house;” see Australian Dictionary of Biography online edition
“The house was called ‘St Helena’ and was situated in Torrington Road, Maroubra. I work in the Local Studies department at Randwick City Council Library Service and have been looking for a good image of this house for ages! Images of the house in its declining years can be seen here. How exciting!” see Picture Australia.

Do you know anything about the history of this house or have any information you can share? We’d love to hear from you!

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Belladonna Festival, Wollongong

Published by imageservices on December 18, 2008 0 Comments

00z05588

This photo was taken in December 2004 during the Belladonna DIY (Do It Yourself) festival in Wollongong, NSW. For years now, the Museum’s curator Glynis Jones has been documenting alternative and sub-cultural events and lifestyles, taking a special interest in researching how people express and communicate their values, beliefs and creative ideas through fashion. The punk outfit pictured in this photo is now in the Museum collection – you can read the story about the outfit and its former owner here.

File # 00z05588

Photography Jean-Francois Lanzarone
© All rights reserved

Sunrise at the Great Wall, Jinshanling

Published by imageservices on December 17, 2008 0 Comments

This image was taken in China in 2006 when one of our photographers spent a month travelling the country to photograph the Great Wall and the surrounding landscape for a photographic immersive that was featured in our exhibition The Great Wall of China: dynasties, dragons and warriors.

This shot was taken at sunrise showing the eastern section of the Great Wall at Jinshanling located in the Hebei Province approximately 120 km from Beijing. Check this great 360 degree panorama of the Great Wall and landscape at Jinshanling by Sleep on the Great Wall.

File# 00×03961

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

Exploring ‘Wool classing’

Published by imageservices on December 16, 2008 0 Comments

This is another video experiment using an image from the Commons project on Flickr. This video is made up of many details from this image ’Wool classing’ that comes from our Tyrrell photographic collection.

Jean-Francois has produced a number of these short video stories and he gets to see the details produced when doing high resolution scans from these glass plate negatives. There are a lot of discoveries to be made from these original images. He notes:
“A bit of wool flies up in the air and reaches a beam under the roof where it gets hooked. From there it watches the men working all day, lifting, spreading, classing and packing up the wool. They stop and take the pose for a photo. The time has stopped its course, the bit of wool has stopped its flight and their faces will never grow old under the roof of the woolshed.”

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 2.0 Generic
Music: "The efforts of weaklings" by Torley (CC-BY-SA).

Australia Square Tower (#398)

Published by imageservices on December 15, 2008 0 Comments

This great image was taken by one of our members in the Modern Times group on Flickr we started a few months ago. We have been showcasing lots of images of Australia Square but have not come across one like this before with its incredible perspective and dramatic colours.

If you have any images that represent modernism in Australia taken from a contemporary perspective we would love to see them in our group and in Photo of the Day. We are approaching our 500th image soon only two to go.

Photography by Christopher Chan
License: Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0 Generic

Library reflected

Published by Paula Bray on December 14, 2008 0 Comments

This image comes from the David Mist photographic archive that was acquired by the Museum in the 90s. This archive covers commercial and fashion photography from London, Sydney, Europe, USA, Asia and Mexico from 1957-1995. This particular image was taken for the book ‘Sydney, A book of photographs’ that was published in 1969. The caption from the book reads:

“The State Office Block in Chifley Square reflects the Public Library building in its plate-glass entrance. It is part of the Macquarie Street end of the city which is fast being rebuilt as the needs of the city increases.”

David has an exhibition on at the moment called David Mist: Swinging Sydney where you can see some of his commissioned work but also his candid shots of life in Sydney.

Photography by David Mist
© All rights reserved

We say farewell to George Oates

Published by imageservices on December 13, 2008 0 Comments


Cutting out, originally uploaded by Powerhouse Museum Collection.

This image comes from the Tyrrell photographic collection and has been posted today to say farewell to George Oates who is leaving Flickr. George has been a big influence and inspiration for us at the Powerhouse Museum especially through the incredible project on Flickr known as the Commons , which she initiated earlier this year with the Library of Congress’ photographic collections. George came to visit us over a year ago and several months after that visit we became the first Museum to join the Commons.

George spent the whole day with us last week talking about her amazing work on Flickr and shared so many stories about the Commons project. I asked George to pick a few favourite images from our account to print up for her as a thank you. This image ‘Cutting out’ was one she picked and it was also chosen by her many months ago for a Flickr blog post she had written when we joined the project back in April. So this post is dedicated to her and the fantastic work that she has achieved and shared. Thank you George and we wish you all the best!

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Portrait of woman in Edwardian dress

Published by imageservices on December 12, 2008 0 Comments

This image comes from our Phillips photographic collection that we have added to the Commons project this week. The detail from this glass plate negative is amazing. Looking at this on the all sizes page shows the intricate pattern of lace on her shirt, the decorations on her elaborate hat and the bracelet on her left wrist. The fern in the background is blurred due to the longer exposure for the plate.

This collection of glass plate negatives was found in a deal box in a garage. The photographer is not identified but is likely to be Arthur Phillips the father of Raymond Phillips whose estate donated this great collection to the Museum. You can see more of the reproductions from this interesting collection here .

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