Photography

Photographs reveal the grand inner-city gardens that were once the glory of Sydney.

A new Photography Gallery is the latest step in turning the Library inside out.

In the days before digital and film photography, images were often taken on glass. But from the 1880s, development of ready-to-use 'dry plate' negatives and simpler cameras saw the rise of amateur photography.

In 1951, a hoard of 3,500 glass plate negatives from the nineteenth century was discovered in a garden shed in Chatswood.

The photographs of George Caddy are an astonishing modernist record of Bondi Beach and its people during a remarkable era. 

Portrait of Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung people from the 1870s show how photography shaped race relationships in the nineteenth century. 

Members of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities are advised that this story contains names and images of deceased people.

These “hidden camera” photos of Sydney street life from the 1880s instantly transport us back in time.

In 1951 one of Australia’s most significant collections of nineteenth-century photographs was found in a garden shed in Chatswood, Sydney.

A landmark 1977 exhibition was a snapshot of the city.

Fashion photographer Helmut Newton’s career began in Australia, where he met fellow photographer Max Dupain and two women who would shape his life.

The year 2018 marks the 40th anniversary since the first Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, which started as a gay rights protest parade.

Henry Marshall was working in the Grace Brothers photographic studio in Sydney when war was declared. 

Designs and photographs from Australia's best known modernist architect.

Albert William Savage was a professional photographer from Moore Park in Sydney. 

Max Dupain’s Sunbaker has inspired an exhibition of contemporary and thought-provoking artworks. 

When this 27 year old sailed into Sydney harbour on 3 February 1954, she practically stopped the nation. 

Adventure, patriotism, or the call of friendship: many people who had experience in Antarctic exploration volunteered to serve in the World War I.

The journey to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge would take almost 100 years. In this 5-part series, travel through history to experience the story of realising a city’s dream. 

In the early 1920s, an exhibition of war photographs toured Australia, attracting crowds and enthusiastic reviews. Many of the photographs had been taken by Australian servicemen and were enlarged and coloured at Colarts Studios.

Hurley's photographs of the western front in 1917 and the Middle East in 1918 are arresting and iconic.

'There'll be so much to be done when this is all finished…So many big subjects to be covered where the right kind of film will be useful.' Damien Parer (1943)

Photography - Sydney exposed takes the first step in providing an online gateway to thousands of images highlighting the history and changing nature of Sydney, Australia's first and largest metropolis.

We've recently digitised a remarkable series of  photos showing players from the Redfern All Blacks rugby league team taken at Redfern Oval in 1946.

The newly acquired the Max Dupain Exhibition Negative Archive with more than 25,000 negatives focuses on the 1930s, 40s and 50s.

The quirky and obscure Hallams slide collection is a curator’s dream, revealing ordinary Australian gardens in the 1960s and 70s.

In 25 years at the State Library, our Curator of Photographs has seen four people cry.

 The longevity of the Australasian Photo-Review marks it as the most significant in terms of insights into the development of photography in Australia 1894 through to the last issue which appeared in December 1956. It is now available online.

As the official photographer on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition, Frank Hurley provided a remarkable record of the dangers and heroism of Antarctic exploration in the early twentieth century.

Sometime around 1916, Fred Harris opened a small tattoo shop in Sussex Street, Sydney.

The optimism of a city imagining its future is captured in photographs, plans and sketches.

A historian shares her delight in the recently acquired Fairfax Media Business Archive.

Elizabeth Fortescue writes about the late artist’s Lavender Bay home, a work of art itself.

Photographs from the Deadly Awards by Jamie James.

A Common Place displays 15 dramatic portraits of Moree Murries taken by Michael Riley, one of Australia’s leading Indigenous contemporary artists.

The images from this collection take us into the lives of a Sydney community, revealing its religious and community events.

Outstanding gardens are revealed by leading photographers in a new exhibition.

One hundred years after troops landed at Gallipoli, the Library commissioned five professional photographers to document how the people of New South Wales spent 25 April, 2015.