Photography | National Library of Australia (NLA)

Photography

Showing 1 - 12 of 40 results
Text in a retro font reading '1975 Living in the Seventies' on a bright orange background
1975: Living in the Seventies

Look back on life in the 70s including politics, feminism, pop culture, news of the day, and more.

Exhibition
Photo close up of a European honey bees on the honeycomb of a beehive

Mark Jesser, European honey bees on a brood frame containing capped and uncapped cells at an apiary near Griffith, New South Wales, 2025, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-3668129443

Picturing beekeeping in Australia

The latest buzz at the Library is that 50 new photos of beekeeping in Australia are now available online. 

News article
Collection guide
Burke Collection

Papers, photographs, ephemera, books and journals from Europe, Asia, America and Australia ranging from 1850-1950 collected by Eric Keast Burke.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Phillips Collection

About 350 photographs, including glass negatives, and a small number of pencil sketches, majority depicting paddle steamers sailing or moored on the Murray or Darling rivers.

Collection guide
Collection guide
Tregellas Collection

About 10,000 stereoscopic view cards produced by both commercial and amateur photographers in all parts of the world and a significant collection of photographic equipment and some books and journals on photography.

Collection guide
A black and white aerial image of Charters Towers.

Charters Towers Replenishing Centre, 1952, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-2909430463

Aerial photographs collection

Aerial photographs of Australia, the Australian Antarctic Territory and Papua New Guinea

Collection guide
1904 camera

Harold Cazneaux's first camera, 1904, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-141166704

Harold Cazneaux (1878–1953) was perhaps Australia's best-known photographer of the early twentieth century. He purchased this camera in 1904, shortly after moving from Adelaide to Sydney, and made photographs of Sydney's streets and waterways.

In 1909 he became the first Australian photographer to exhibit his works in a solo show.

Cazneaux was a master of the pictorialist style of photography, using soft focus to capture scenes that were - and remain - familiar to many Australians in a new light. He was able to find a timeless, extraordinary beauty in the everyday.

Cazneaux collection

A large collection of glass negatives, papers and photographs dating mostly from 1904 to 1940 depicting many aspects of Australian life and architecture.

Collection guide
Map of East India Islands, Dutch colonies, with Thailand, French colonies, Indochina and Malay Peninsula.

Henry Otley Bayer, Malay Archipelag 1:8,500,000, 1942, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-580711626

Beyer Collection

Papers, including manuscripts on Philippine ethnography, books and pamphlets in various languages on a wide range of subjects with a focus on the Philippines, photographs and printed and manuscript maps collected by Henry Otley Beyer.

Collection guide
Map of Antarctica showing territories and dependencies.

Australia. Department of the Interior. Property and Survey Branch. & E. P. Bayliss, J. S. & Cumpston, Antarctica, 1939, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-236895938

Australian explorations in the Antarctic

Diaries, papers, photographs, maps and other material related to Australia's involvement in the Antarctic

Collection guide
On the right is a man holding a camera. On the left are the words 'Fit to Print: Defining Moments from the Fairfax Photo Archive'
Learn with the Curator: Fit to Print photography

Learn from our expert curators to discover stories behind Fit to Print: Defining Moments from the Fairfax Photo Archive, and the methods used to produce these slices of life from Australian history.

Learning activity for adults
Video
man working on huge gears

Wolfgang Sievers, The gears gears for the mining industry, Vickers Ruwolt, Burnley, Melbourne, 1967, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-136505226

Documenting modern Australia

Module

This resource is aligned to the Australian Curriculum: Design and Technologies standards for Year 5 and 6. It draws on the Library’s Wolfgang Sievers Collection to explore how photography, design and industry have transformed modern Australia, encouraging students to investigate how technologies are developed, used, and understood in social and environmental contexts.

Digital Classroom
Man leaning against gate

Wolfgang Sievers, [Photograph of Wolfgang Sievers], Berlin, Germany, 1991, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-161009403

Wolfgang Sievers

Topic

Wolfgang Georg Sievers, AO (1913–2007) was a well-known modernist photographer who documented Australian architecture and industry over a career spanning almost 60 years.

Digital Classroom

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