When we’re flooded with images, how much of their content do we retain?
Penelope Umbrico, '541,795 Suns from Sunsets from Flickr (Partial) 01/23/06,' 2006-ongoing, detail, 2500 4 inch x 6 inch c-prints. Courtesy Mark Moore Gallery and Bruce Silverstein Gallery.
Snapping and sharing photographs has never been easier. But being inundated with images can have a host of unintended consequences, from heightened anxiety to impaired memory.
The NGV’s summer exhibition is curated to create a dialogue between Ai Weiwei and Andy Warhol, and this conversation operates on multiple levels on a variety of themes, and across time and space.
Parke raises important questions about whether humanism is desirable or even possible in photography today.
Exhibition space, Monash Gallery of Art.
The title of Parke’s current exhibition alludes to a 19th-century faith in the camera’s mechanical vision as superior to human vision – while also complicating that assumption for modern viewers.
Paul Weller brought a case over the use of images of his children.
Dylan Martinez/REUTERS
In the same week that Charlie Hebdo’s cartoon of Aylan al-Kurdi made the headlines, I’m reminded of another controversial image. In 1840, J M W Turner exhibited what would become one of his most famous…
Decaying buildings signify the inevitable process of history, to which we, too, will eventually succumb.
Freaktography
Porn. Few words come with as many pre-loaded connotations and assumptions. So what are we to make of the rise of “ruin porn”? Should photos of urban decay brighten or darken our day?
We have – in some of the world – sanitised death, but the custom of post-mortem photography reminds us death is closer to us than we might like to think. This article contains images of dead people.
Cleverly doctored images of the effects of Sydney’s April storms amused social media users – but hoax images have a much longer history.
Todd Lopez/@Creative_Order
The adage that the camera doesn’t lie is, of course, a lie, as a long history of hoaxes amply demonstrates. And yet we can still be duped by tricksters. We should remain vigilant.
After witnessing the rise and fall of many empires, the ancient site of Palmyra is under threat from Islamic State.
Phillip George
Conflict involving Islamic State has raised the prospect of the destruction of Palmyra, a World Heritage site in Syria. It’s not the first time the region has been invaded, but it may well be the last.
Photographer unknown, studio portrait of Thomas Hinton, 1900.
National Museum of Australia
Thomas Hinton’s photographs, and what we can know about his life from other sources, give a rare glimpse into the life of someone suffering a mental illness at the turn of the 20th century.
Australian newspaper photographers have always been forbidden to show military failure or fragility.
AAP Image/Dave Hunt
Although more than 100,000 Australians have lost their lives as a result of war service, photographs of our dead have never been published in newspapers.Perhaps we should reconsider this.
Ian North, 2015. Detail from East Antarctica 1915 no. 7. Charcoal on inkjet pigment print, c. 55x148cm.
Courtesy of the artist/ Greenaway Art Gallery.
The latest exhibition of photographer Ian North’s work, Antarctica 1915, demonstrates his uncanny ability to tap into the zeitgeist of our socially fractured and culturally fragmented times.
Trent Parke is Australia’s only Magnum photographer. His current show is an immersive multimedia display that captures and celebrates the random wonder of his environments.
A major photography retrospective opened at the Art Gallery of NSW on the weekend, but what does The Photograph and Australia tell us about our present and past?
Some of the earliest applications of photography came in the fields of archaeology and botany. Pictured is a photograph from botanist Anna Atkins’ Photographs of British Algae: Cyanotype Impressions (1843).
Honorary (Senior Fellow) School of Culture and Communication University of Melbourne. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, The University of Melbourne