Photography and Australia

Helen Ennis is Senior Lecturer in Art Theory at the Australian National University School of Art. She was the former Curator of Photography at the National Gallery of Australia and has also independently curated exhibitions at the National Portrait Gallery, the National Library of Australia, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales. She is also the author of Margaret Michaelis: Love, Loss, and Photography (2005) and Intersections: Photography, History, and the National Library of Australia (2004).

"This is a first-rate book. It reproduces some superb and utterly distinctive imagery." - Art Newspaper". . . prior to Helen Enniss Photography and Australia arguably only three books of any significance had been published on the topic. Enniss survey is distinguished however by more than its mere arrival. Central to her inquiry is the argument that photography in Australia has been inescapably shaped by the countrys colonial invasion / inception . . . One of the most commendable aspects is Enniss critical analysis of the medium in relation to the complexity of indigenous and settler Australian relations." - Source"This is an excellent survey of the major developments, practitioners and icons of Australian photography, providing a wide-ranging, inclusive overview . . . Generously illustrated with eighty images, and written in a clear, accessible style, seven chapters cover themes and periods ranging across the entire span of photographic practice in Australia since 1841, and constituting a valuable introduction to the medium&#39s main developments in broad historical context." - Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History"Helen Ellis weaves together eighty photographs to thoughtfully argue for the centrality of photographic image-making to the Australian experience of being a settler nation . . . Ennis is to be commended for providing a thought-provoking work about the multiple visual histories of, and in, photography that emerged from Australia, and by which pasts, presents and futures of the nation are being negotiated." - Pacific Affairs