Photography and Australia (Reaktion Books - Exposures)

"With its extraordinary landscape and fiercely independent cultural traditions. Australia is uniquely suited to having its national narrative told through visual documentation. Helen Ennis brings together a selection of photographs that recount its story, and through this visual chronicle she uncovers a distinctively Australian visual culture." "The striking images featured in Photography and Australia, drawn from the National Gallery of Australia and other public collections, range from anonymous archival photographs to modern works that include examples by Aboriginal photographers. In addition to iconic views of rugged landscapes, they embrace documentary records, wilderness shots, post-mortem studies of bushrangers and other images both quotidian and extraordinary. Ennis explores how the photographs reveal the racial, social and political tensions woven throughout Australian history, and argues that the colonial experience - particularly the tumultuous relation between white settlers and Aboriginal people is a central element of these visual testaments, She also examines how the responses by individual photographers to place, modernity and globalization have been expressed through their work."--BOOK JACKET.