Beyond Sentimentality: The Family as Patron, Subject and Author of Early Photography in Colonial Australia

Abstract

This article investigates the first decade and a half of photographic practice in the Australian colonies from the perspective of family participation in the portrait marketplace. The article argues that this period has largely been narrated around determining the point of photography’s arrival. This approach risks underplaying both the significant innovation and entrepreneurship that defined early photographic practice in this part of the British Empire and how photographic culture engaged with settlers’ dispossession of First Nations land. This is not to say that early colonial Australian photography developed in isolation. Rather, the evasion of early British photography patents, as well as Australia’s geographic location diluted the perpetuation of the English studio model in this part of the world. This, in turn, impacted the kinds of individuals who practised as daguerreian photographers in the colonies and – because of the appetites of colonial society, particularly settler families – the types of photographic products offered.