Photography on the goldfields

EXPLORE the history of photography and the gold rush with Associate Professor Anne Maxwell next month.

The talk held at the Eureka Centre will focus on Richard Daintree and Antoine Fauchery who opened one of Australia’s most successful early photography studios.

“These were the two earliest photographers of the gold rush period in the Ballarat and Victorian region,” said Ms Maxwell.

“I look at the two different styles that they work with and develop, and give you a little bit of information about their lives as well.”

Ms Maxwell is an Associate Professor in the English program in the school of culture and communication at the University of Melbourne.

“My background is literature and fine arts and I also specialise in what I call cultural history,” she said.

“What I will be focusing on is the rise of photography as the beginning of photography coincided with the gold rush.

“The fact that the gold rush occurred around the same time as photography means it has become an important visual source of knowledge about the gold rushes and their social effects.”

Despite gold rush photographs being more than a century old, Ms Maxwell said they still hold relevance today.

“I think they give you quite a lot of detail about the period,” she said.

“Both of these men were very good photographers and very skilled for that period.

“The things that they record are not only details about what life and the goldfields was like for men who were participating, but they also recorded the effects they had on Indigenous people and the kind of relationships that existed between the miners and Indigenous people.”

Historical photography and the nineteenth century gold rushes will be held Thursday 1 August at 5.30pm. Bookings can be made on the Eureka Centre Ballarat website.