The province of professionals in city studios, photography was once a serious business.
For me, it meant being fussed into the hated hair ribbons and frills, told to 'stay off the swings and not get my dress dirty' while everyone was gathered for the trip into town.
Family snapshots were different.
The black and white pictures that survive from those days usually show me as a gangly kid with wild hair, haphazard hems and a grin wide as Bondi beach.
When I became a parent, the resented camera suddenly assumed the status of vital accessory to the everyday miracle of our son's development.
My addiction to capturing, forever, the momentous events from 'first smile' to 'first step' and the minute changes leading to 'first school day' was as fervent as any other Mum's.
In my case, the snapshots took on a different purpose as our son grew.
I began to see him as a subject.
The camera became another painting tool, catching the little boy and his playmates in the natural poses of childhood that found their place in many paintings.
As my skill and ambition for subject matter evolved, the camera provided a quick way to note details of buildings or machinery I wanted to include in a future painting.
In my studio are hanging files stuffed with faded colour photos:
Quicker and more convenient than a sketchpad,the camera was simply an means to an end, an aide to memory, before the invention of external hard drives and USB sticks.
So, I was fascinated to learn - during research for a novel set in 1890s Australia - that photography owes its existence to a man who could not draw.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce wanted to break into the lucrative new fashion for lithography in Paris.
With no talent for drawing, he had to rely on his artistic son, Isadore, to produce the images.
When Isadore was called up for military service, Joseph began making experiments and in 1822 he produced the world's first photograph.
In collaboration with Louis Daguerre, he helped to develop the process that led to modern photography.
By the 1840s, daguerreotype portraits were all the rage in Australia.
Ten years later, fifty photographic studios operated in the cities.
With the development of the hand-held camera and roll film, marketed by Kodak in 1888, the candid photographer became a fixture on Australian streets and beaches.
The camera had a future role to play in human affairs, far darker than filling albums of family memoirs.
Today, it's taken for granted that film footage, shot in the field of combat and televised to the lounge rooms of the world, changed public support for the war in Vietnam.
Less well known is the effect wrought by real-time coverage by British war correspondents of the Crimean war in 1853-56.
This was the first time the public were daily exposed to the horrific reality of war.
Fast railway communications meant the reports and photographs from the front were printed in the next morning's newspaper back home.
The American Civil War of 1861-65 also was extensively photographed and documented directly from the battlefields.
Communications technology continues to develop.
We can tune in, at any hour of the day, to the sound-and-light show of ever-escalating horror that is the 'news.
' As light relief, we are treated to 'news' that is nothing more than gossip - about people known as 'celebrities.
' But we need only hit a few keys to gain access to the treasure-trove of human knowledge available on the World Wide Web, much of it provided freely by the generous folk behind open-source sites.
Humanity is alive and well amid the relentless gloom of 'The News.
'
For me, it meant being fussed into the hated hair ribbons and frills, told to 'stay off the swings and not get my dress dirty' while everyone was gathered for the trip into town.
Family snapshots were different.
The black and white pictures that survive from those days usually show me as a gangly kid with wild hair, haphazard hems and a grin wide as Bondi beach.
When I became a parent, the resented camera suddenly assumed the status of vital accessory to the everyday miracle of our son's development.
My addiction to capturing, forever, the momentous events from 'first smile' to 'first step' and the minute changes leading to 'first school day' was as fervent as any other Mum's.
In my case, the snapshots took on a different purpose as our son grew.
I began to see him as a subject.
The camera became another painting tool, catching the little boy and his playmates in the natural poses of childhood that found their place in many paintings.
As my skill and ambition for subject matter evolved, the camera provided a quick way to note details of buildings or machinery I wanted to include in a future painting.
In my studio are hanging files stuffed with faded colour photos:
- Tackle found in long-abandoned woolsheds and cane-cutters barracks.
- Harness bits from horse teams that no one remembers.
- Costumes and accessories worn by fashionable ladies in the era of bustles and whalebone corsets.
- Humble kitchen equipment plied by servants of long ago.
Quicker and more convenient than a sketchpad,the camera was simply an means to an end, an aide to memory, before the invention of external hard drives and USB sticks.
So, I was fascinated to learn - during research for a novel set in 1890s Australia - that photography owes its existence to a man who could not draw.
Joseph Nicéphore Niépce wanted to break into the lucrative new fashion for lithography in Paris.
With no talent for drawing, he had to rely on his artistic son, Isadore, to produce the images.
When Isadore was called up for military service, Joseph began making experiments and in 1822 he produced the world's first photograph.
In collaboration with Louis Daguerre, he helped to develop the process that led to modern photography.
By the 1840s, daguerreotype portraits were all the rage in Australia.
Ten years later, fifty photographic studios operated in the cities.
With the development of the hand-held camera and roll film, marketed by Kodak in 1888, the candid photographer became a fixture on Australian streets and beaches.
The camera had a future role to play in human affairs, far darker than filling albums of family memoirs.
Today, it's taken for granted that film footage, shot in the field of combat and televised to the lounge rooms of the world, changed public support for the war in Vietnam.
Less well known is the effect wrought by real-time coverage by British war correspondents of the Crimean war in 1853-56.
This was the first time the public were daily exposed to the horrific reality of war.
Fast railway communications meant the reports and photographs from the front were printed in the next morning's newspaper back home.
The American Civil War of 1861-65 also was extensively photographed and documented directly from the battlefields.
Communications technology continues to develop.
We can tune in, at any hour of the day, to the sound-and-light show of ever-escalating horror that is the 'news.
' As light relief, we are treated to 'news' that is nothing more than gossip - about people known as 'celebrities.
' But we need only hit a few keys to gain access to the treasure-trove of human knowledge available on the World Wide Web, much of it provided freely by the generous folk behind open-source sites.
Humanity is alive and well amid the relentless gloom of 'The News.
'
SHARE
