Monthly Archive for August, 2009

Wandering around Darling harbour on a glorious spring day, it was striking to come across this local historical image prominently displayed on a temporary wall alongside the path. In direct contrast, just beyond the wall a dull cacophony of mechanical noise was a reminder of Sydney’s continuing transformation. This remarkable photograph, copied off a glass plate negative and simply known as ’Pyrmont Bridge’ is from a collection of local NSW photographs that were published by Sydney firm Charles Kerry and Co, between 1892 -1917. This collection is part of the Powerhouse Museums extensive Tyrrell collection. The photograph documents the busy bridge with wonderful clarity and depth. The details of the bustle of Sydney life circa 1900 are preserved, with careful observation revealing intriguing detail such as the “sparrow starver,” or a boy paid by the council to collect manure off the street.

Photography by Paula Bray
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.0
Post by Emma Bjorndahl, Digital Services volunteer

Trained as both an opera singer and a boxer, Lovelace Watkins (1938–1995) was a Las Vegas-based soul singer and performer with a charismatic style and velvet voice. Nicknamed ‘The Black Sinatra’, he toured nightclubs and venues around the world including in Europe, South Africa and Australia. With his signature boom voice reminiscent of Paul Robeson he received critical acclaim in South Africa at the height of apartheid with a street parade held in his honour. Bruno Benini captured this shot of Lovelace Watkins while he was visiting Melbourne during the sixties. The photographer’s widow, Hazel Benini recalls: When Bruno took this shot he really thought he’d captured a great moment. He felt there was an anguish there. He really liked that shot (Hazel Benini interview with curator, December 2008). The photograph is part of the Bruno Benini photography archive acquired with funding assistance from the Australian Government through the National Cultural Heritage Account in early 2009.

Photography by Bruno Benini
© Estate of Bruno Benini
Post by Anne-Marie Van de Ven, Curator

We want to meet you!

We are very excited to announce that we will be participating in the global Flickr Commons meetup that will be held on the 3rd October on the forecourt of the Museum. This meetup is going to be celebrated by as many of the institutions that are involved in the Commons on Flickr on the weekend of the 2nd-3rd October. This global meetup is touted as a chance to get to meet our online community and you can meet the staff that work on the Commons and get a chance to discuss a range of topics, issues, interests and basically everything about the photographic collections in the Commons.

The interesting thing about this meetup is that the content is going to be curated by the Flickr community. There is a selection process that Flickr members can access to select content form every institution that will end up as a slideshow that the participating institutions can project onto their buildings at night or another suitable location.

Artist impression

Our event takes place on Saturday the 3rd October from 6.30pm. This is similar to an open cinema event where you can bring a picnic, cushions and chairs and sit back and enjoy a fantastic slideshow of amazing historic photographic collections from all over the world. We will have some exciting giveaways and surprises for the night. The following day we will be discussing this event and all things Flickr Commons including some surprise guests. Keep up with the all the news and details for Common Ground here .

If you have a Flickr account then you can vote – we look forward to meeting you!

Top photo includes images from all the Flickr Commons accounts
No known copyright restrictions

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

Melb Uni :: Car Park, originally uploaded by geekylucas.

This fantastic image was shot by one of the photographers that has been contributing to our Modern Times group on Flickr. This incredibly graphic shot has been lined up with the great perspective of looking down the long line of the large, arched concrete pillars with the red car just to the left.

Modern Times: the untold story of modernism in Australia, is currently on show at the State Library of Queensland until the 8th November. ‘Modern times: the untold story of modernism in Australia explores the transformation of all aspects of modern life and focuses on our unique experience of modernism. Objects drawn from five decades – 1917 to 1967 – reveal how our cosmopolitan culture was shaped.’

If you are in Brisbane you might like to check out the modernist architecture Walking tour provided by Brisbane Modern magazine. We would love to see some of these buildings in our group on Flickr.

Photography by geekylucas
© All rights reserved

What does it say about our highly textualized cities when even the decoration on buildings is in the form of writing? The Advertiser Building is the new head office for Adelaide’s major newspaper so a print motif, in this instance at least, seems appropriate. According to The Australian Institute of Architects, the architect states “innovative breathing ‘Second Glass Skin’ across the Waymouth Street frontage … provides acoustic and thermal protection and shading as well as providing a distinctive urbane and graphically communicative façade”.

Gary Sauer-Thompson who contributes to the Museum’s Sign Design in Australia Flickr group under the name of ‘Poodly’ – captured this intriguing shot of other buildings reflected in the glass panels, but points out that the building as a whole is disappointing in terms of sustainable design and did not achieve the five-star ‘green’ rating that Rupert Murdoch promised.

Surface text is also a feature of a proposed new building recently announced for the University of Technology, Sydney. According to the Sydney Morning Herald “massive uneven aluminium shields strike out from the 12-storey building at acute angles [and] binary coding – the foundation of computing and telecommunications – is laser-cut into the shields. The square zeros and dashed ones can be translated into ‘University of Technology Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology’ “. The university’s Vice Chancellor is reported as saying that he thinks the building design is fantastic. “It spells out what we are about: technology innovation and creativity.’’ Spells out? Well, yes.

Photography by poodly
© All rights reserved
Posted by Megan Hicks (meganix), Sign Design in Australia team