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Style

Commercial uses of the photographic medium can be seen to great advantage in photographs taken for the fashion and advertising industries, especially in the 1960s work of Laurence Le Guay and Athol Shmith. Their work displays an audacious mingling of Australian elements and international influences.

The models in the photographs by Le Guay and Shmith relate to the camera in a less traditionally dreamy way, taking it on directly and in more overtly sexualised terms. They are also differently idealised. It is not so much their feminine perfection that is stressed, as the particularities of their features and their individuality.

Le Guay and Athol Shmith experimented with their technique, introducing outdoors locations, narrative tableaux and, in Shmith’s case, using tone drop-outs and abstracted patterns. The result is a sophisticated and internationally up-to-date 1960s look.