Monthly Archive for June, 2010

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Frock stars

Published by Paula Bray on June 20, 2010 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

Whilst preparing for our Frock Stars exhibition our photographer Marinco spent a day shooting at Nicola Finetti’s studio to produce a slideshow for the studio that we have recreated in the gallery. This is one of the shots he produced on this day whilst we were also shooting an audio visual interview that you can view here.

Sometimes it is the little details that capture a photographer’s eye such as the mass of black and white straps from some garments that were hanging in the designer’s studio

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© All rights reserved

Sunny Corner silver mine: a rich past with a long legacy

Published by Paula Bray on June 19, 2010 0 Comments Tags: , , , .

Silver, gold, zinc and another metal called antimony were mined at Sunny Corner, near Bathurst, from 1875 to 1922. During that time more than 100 tonnes of silver were produced and the mine was one of the most productive in the country. Unfortunately for today’s residents, mine tailings were used as landfill for the village. Local soil and water is contaminated with lead and arsenic that remained after the smelting of the ores.

The damage is now being cleaned up using fungi and plants that can absorb or break down the toxins

Photography by Henry King
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Sandra McEwen, Principal Curator

Sedan chair

Published by Paula Bray on June 18, 2010 0 Comments

John Thomson took this photograph of a sedan chair and its two bearers in Hong Kong around 1869. This is a collotype print from the original negative which was published in 1874. The cost of using a sedan chair service at this time ranged from 10 cents to two dollars a day. Initially Thompson felt guilty about being carried about on the shoulders of the bearers but after a few days in the “hot, trying climate” quickly adapted to their use.

Chair-stands were to be found outside all of the European hotels as well as at the wharves and most of the bearers slept, ate, and worked on the streets of Hong Kong for most of the year. Military officers were not permitted to use sedan chairs and if they could not walk they were at liberty to use horses.

Photography by John Thomson
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Geoff Barker, Assistant Curator

Pop art cans

Published by Paula Bray on June 17, 2010 0 Comments Tags: .

This curious image is one of a group of photographs donated to the Museum by the NSW Egg Marketing Board in 1990.

This pop art arrangement of cans containing “Dried Egg Albumen” may have been used in a marketing campaign by the Board at some stage. I don’t work in marketing, but if I had of worked on this campaign I may have suggested that the product be called “Dried Egg Whites”, instead of the less palatable “Albumen”.

Photographer unknown
Post by Erika Dicker, Assistant Curator

Sir Malcolm Campbell and Bluebird

Published by Paula Bray on June 16, 2010 2 Comments Tags: .

Sir Malcolm Campbell at the wheel of the "Bluebird", with crowd, 1926 - 1936

The image above showing the classic racing car ‘Bluebird’ was taken sometime around 1931 by an unknown photographer and comes from the Don Harkness archive collection. This object has not been completely catalogued but we have added it to the Commons on Flickr seeking tags, research and comments relating to this photograph. The Harkness archive was acquired by the Museum in the 1960s as part of the Curator of Transport, Norm Harwood’s campaign to develop a Transport and Engineering “Archive”. Harkness was a pioneer in the Australian automotive and aeronautical industries, a racing driver and record breaker.

This image has racing driver Sir Malcolm Campbell, an English racing motorist, at the wheel of ‘Bluebird’. According to Sir Malcolm Campbell there are pictures of ‘Bluebird’, taken in 2004, which is on “permanent display at the Nascar exhibit hall at the Daytona International Speedway”. State Library and Archives of Florida has a great portrait of Campbell along with this image of him racing ‘Bluebird’.

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Modern Times: Flickr group highlight

Published by Paula Bray on June 15, 2010 1 Comment Tags: .


Australia_2006_0115, originally uploaded by marco 2000.

This graphic shot showing the curve of a sail on the Sydney Opera House was photographed by one of the members in our Modern Times group on Flickr. A section of one of the sails of this unique architectural landmark, designed by Danish architect Jørn Utzon, has been framed by the black shadows on the right and below with just a hint of cloud in the sky, the focus being on the graphic shapes produced by the tiles. We have previously blogged that there were an astonishing 1,056,006 Swedish roof tiles that were needed for this project.

Photography by marco 2000
License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic

Grading pearl buttons

Published by Kathy Hackett on June 14, 2010 0 Comments Tags: , , , , .

This photograph is the last in a didactic display in the Powerhouse Museum collection which illustrates the complete process of manufacturing pearl buttons as it was carried out in Australia, from diving for shell to marketing the finished article. The display was acquired from the Pearl Button Manufacturing Company of Foster Street, Sydney, in 1933.

Pearl divers in places such as Thursday Island, Broome and Port Darwin harvested the Golden Lip pearl shell, (Pinctada maxima), from which the buttons were made. After cutting, splitting, grinding, fashioning, hole drilling and polishing, final stage in the process of manufacture was grading. Buttons were examined on both sides by hand and sorted into three grades. After grading, they were sewn onto cards. The highest grade, ‘firsts’ were were sewn onto silver card and the ‘seconds’ onto blue cards. In accordance with the international standard of the day, (the photograph was acquired in 1933), two dozen buttons were sewn onto each card.

Buttons made from pearl shell were valued because they were durable and retained their lustre unaffected by washing. After World War 2, plastics replaced pearl shell as the preferred material for buttons.

The pearl shell button spawned a whole subculture in the ‘pearlies’ of London’s East End and its appeal has endured as both a utilitarian object and a source of inspiration for contemporary designers like Rowena Gough, whose neckpiece, Mobius Bandolier is part of the Powerhouse Museum Collection.

The Torres Strait supplied over half the world demand for pearl shell in the 1890s. In addition to buttons, pearl shell was used for cutlery, hair combs, jewellery, decorative objects and inlay for furniture. The Powerhouse Museum collection includes a variety of objects made from pearl shell.

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Winner: Trainspotting photographers award

Published by Paula Bray on June 13, 2010 0 Comments Tags: .

This is Richard Whitford the winner of the Powerhouse Museum photographer’s choice award for our Trainspotting photography competition with his winning image, ‘Frozen valley’ that was also highly commended in the steam trains category. Richard came in to collect his prize, a Canon EOS 1000D with an EF-S 18/55 lens last week and was telling us about shooting his winning image. Richard, who predominately shoots video, was out on location at the scene near Salt Lake City, Utah and he actually borrowed a camera to take his winning entry.

Richard recalls

On the weekend of 15 & 16 February 2010, the Heber Valley Railroad near Salt Lake City, Utah, was running a ‘winter photofreight’ special steam-hauled train. I took the plunge, booked a seat, headed over and was treated to this scene of 2-8-0 steamlocomotive No 618 in the stunning Wasatch Mountain Range skirting the frozen Deer Creek Reservoir.

Whilst we were talking to Richard he also confessed to appearing in one of the other highly commended photographer’s images which we found quite amazing. This is him shooting video in ‘Dramatic entrance’ by Sam Roach from the Trainspotting category. Congratulations Richard!

Photography by Sotha Bourn
© All rights reserved

Polishing pearl buttons

Published by Kathy Hackett on June 12, 2010 0 Comments Tags: , , .

This photograph is part of a didactic display in the Powerhouse Museum collection which illustrates the complete process of manufacturing pearl buttons as it was carried out in Australia, from diving for shell to marketing the finished article. The display was acquired from the Pearl Button Manufacturing Company of Foster Street, Sydney, in 1933.

Pearl divers in places such as Thursday Island, Broome and Port Darwin harvested the Golden Lip pearl shell, (Pinctada maxima), from which the buttons were made. After cutting, splitting, grinding, fashioning and hole drilling ‘blanks’ the resulting buttons were polished. The polishing of pearl buttons was done in two stages, mechanical and chemical. First the buttons were placed in a revolving drum, or ‘rumbler’ with water and a small amount of pumice powder. The drums revolved for several hours until the surface of the buttons was perfectly smooth. The chemical stage consisted of boiling the buttons in soapy water and treating them with muriatic acid and bluestone to render the lustre permanent. The buttons were then washed and given a final polish by rumbling them in a felt-lined drum, after which they were ready for grading.

Buttons made from pearl shell were valued because they were durable and retained their lustre unaffected by washing. After World War 2, plastics replaced pearl shell as the preferred material for buttons.

The Torres Strait supplied over half the world demand for pearl shell in the 1890s. In addition to buttons, pearl shell was used for cutlery, hair combs, jewellery, decorative objects and inlay for furniture. The Powerhouse Museum collection includes a variety of objects made from pearl shell.

Photographer unknown
No known copyright restrictions

Australia’s first pregnant man

Published by Paula Bray on June 11, 2010 0 Comments

This is a photograph of Australia’s first pregnant man, Adam. Museum photographers were fortunate enough to get this shot of him when he was being interviewed at the Museum in 2007, as part of the Ultimo Science Festival.http://www.ultimosciencefestival.com/.

Adam and his wife had decided to start their family in a cutting edge way, using the science and technology. He was at the Museum to discuss what went into their fertility process, the wide ranging public responses to this new science and the complications encountered and associated with the delivery.

Ok, Ok, so we know men can’t get pregnant. Adam was played by actor James Lugton, with a script first developed by Spectrum Theatre for the Science Museum in London, but the discussion was real. The Museum decided to run this program as a way of allowing our audience to discuss the ethical and moral issues around breaking science in a safe and easy forum.

James Lugton with object : 86/424 Electrotherapeutic apparatus, ‘Ultrasan High Frequency Electrotherapeutic Apparatus’, plastic / metal / glass / paper, J. Platus, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, 1940-1950 Purchased 1986.

Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© all rights reserved
Post by Erika Dicker, Assistant Curator