Australian vernacular photography

Overview

Australian vernacular photography, on show at the Art Gallery of NSW until May 18, is a glorious, poignant and amusing look at Australian life over the last 55 or so years. Sixteen photographers are featured: Jeff Carter, Ed Douglas, Peter Elliston, Gerrit Fokkema, Sue Ford, Fiona Hall, Robert McFarlane, Hal Missingham, David Moore, Trent Parke, Roger Scott, Glenn Sloggett, Ingeborg Tyssen, John F. Williams, William Yang and Anne Zahalka. The group contribute a broad cross section of images that capture the Australian experience. Crocodile-skinned bathers, toys on display at the Easter Show, backyard swing sets, beach babes and surfer dudes, protesters and hearses — it's Australiana at its best.

The exhibition is filled with really superb works. Hal Missingham's Surf carnival, Cronulla (1968) is a celebration of beach babes and surfer guys in a wonderfully composed, heavily geometric image. Trent Parke's somewhat blurred and abstract Backyard swing set, QLD (2003), is an example of contemporary photography at its best. Images range from the quaint (a shot of the Grafton Jacaranda festival crowning ceremony) to the funny (a budget funeral company promising to bury your loved ones "cheaper and deeper" than their competition) to the politically charged (people protesting the Vietnam War).

The idea that photography can be high art has come about relatively recently and it's interesting to chart the development of the medium over the course of several decades. The earliest photographs in the exhibition, from the 1960s and the '70s, seem somewhat more spontaneous and impressionistic than their contemporary counterparts. As you move towards the present day, emphases on composition and construction become more pronounced.

For an exhibition that aims to capture the Australian vernacular, Max Dupain is notably absent. The show does include a sunbather, and it's a wonderful shot of a tanned, hairy man holding his thongs while he scopes out the scene near a beach. Unfortunately, the danger of skating too close to what is perhaps the most iconic Australian photograph is that you will always fall short by comparison.

You can't help but be impressed at the technical virtuosity of the photographers. Australian vernacular photography is bursting with beautifully shot, masterful images. It's a snack of an exhibition; it won't take you very long to see at all. It's well worth a visit.

Image: Cheaper and Deeper, 1996, Type C Print (image detail).