For over a century, press and magazine photography has influenced how Australians have viewed society, and played a critical role in Australia's evolving national identity. Despite its importance and longevity, the historiography of Australian news photography is surprising limited. This article examines the history of press and magazine photography and considers its genesis, the transformative technological innovations, debates about images of violence, the industrial attitudes towards photographers and their treatment, the use of photographs and the seismic recent changes. The article argues that while the United States and United Kingdom influenced the trajectory of press and news photography in Australia, there are significant and illuminating differences.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
‘America's Terrible Tabloids’1927, The Australasian Journalist, 21 February, p. 28.
2.
AndersonF.TrembathR.2011, Witnesses to War: The History of Australian Conflict Reporting, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
3.
AndersonF.GawendaM.McManusJ.SouthJ.GeraghtyK.2013, ‘A Picture Tells a Thousand Words’, address at Melbourne Writers Festival, 30 August.
MoellerS.D.1989, Shooting War, Basic Books, New York.
37.
NewtonG.1980, Fifty Years of Australian Photography 1900–1950, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
38.
NewtonG.1988, Shades of Light: 1839–1988, Australian National Gallery and Collins, Canberra.
39.
‘Obituary: Earl McNeil’1969, The Journalist, September, p. 8.
40.
PentreathA.D.1922, ‘The Sun-News Pictorial’, The Australasian Journalist, 15 August, pp. 84, 169.
41.
‘A Photographer's Complaint’1931, The Journalist, p. 2.
42.
‘Photographers, artists and new deal’, 1941, The Journalist, May, p. 9.
43.
‘Poor Relations in Salary Negotiations’1967, The Journalist, June, p. 3.
44.
‘A Protest Over Prize Winning Photograph’1977, The Journalist, September, p. 1.
45.
RoederG.1995, The Censored War: American Visual Experience During World War Two, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT.
46.
ShneerD.2011, Through Soviet Jewish Eyes: Photography, War and the Holocaust, Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NH.
47.
‘Should Newspapers Publish Pictures of the Dead?’1927, The Australasian Journalist, 18 March, p. 47.
48.
SontagS.2003, On Photography, Penguin, London.
49.
SouterG.1981, Company of Heralds: A Century and a Half of Australian Publishing by John Fairfax Limited and Its Predecessors, 1831–1981, Melbourne University Press, Melbourne.
50.
TaylorJ.1991, War Photography: Realism in the British Press, Routledge, London.
51.
‘They Threatened the Photographer’1935, The Journalist, 31 May, p. 11.
52.
TrachtenbergA.1989, Reading American Photographs: Images as History, Hill and Wang, New York.
53.
Unidentified2013, Interview with author, 30 October.
54.
UsherJ. (ed.) 2007, The Argus: Life & Death of a Newspaper, Australian Scholarly Publishing, Melbourne.
55.
WhelanK.1993, Photography of The Age: Newspaper Photography in Australia, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney.
56.
WillisA.1988, Picturing Australia: A History of Photography, Angus & Robertson, Sydney.
57.
ZelizerB.1998, Remembering to Forget, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
58.
ZelizerB.2010, About to Die: How News Images Move the Public, Oxford University Press, New York.
