ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 59| October 2002
New Photographic Acquisition:
Works by Jeff Carter
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Jeff
Carter, b.1928 |
The National Library’s ongoing interest in the work of freelance photographer–journalist Jeff Carter has seen the recent acquisition of another series of his remarkable photographs. In 2001 we added his fine record of Sorlie’s Travelling Vaudeville Show, Broken Hill 1957 to our existing holdings of his work, and this year have purchased his Queen Victoria Markets 1956 images and two photographs of Sydney nightlife 1961.
Carter, born in 1928, began taking photographs while still at high school in Victoria. He set out travelling around Australia with his camera and cumbersome ‘portable’ typewriter in 1946, and made a living selling his stories and photographs to a wide range of Australian and international newspapers and magazines. He supplemented his income with itinerant work as a drover, fruit picker, road worker and mill hand, getting to know the people who would be the subjects of his photographs for the next 50 years and more. The early years of his career filled him with admiration for the people making their livings in some of the toughest environments in Australia. His approach of living and working with his subjects for a period of time, often coming back to visit year after year, has resulted in an extraordinary record of Australian life.
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Jeff
Carter, b.1928 |
The Queen Victoria Markets 1956 series was taken during a number of dawn visits to the Markets while Jeff was covering the Melbourne Olympic Games for two Australian magazines, Walkabout and People, and an American magazine. The photographs were experimental for the times, taken with a small format hand-held camera and available light, and aiming for candid rather than posed shots. Carter has described himself as photographer to the poor and unknown, and as with all his photographs, the Queen Victoria Markets series captures the lives of ‘ordinary’ people with frank interest and affection. Of particular interest to the National Library, the series also captures the detailed processes of wholesale and retail food marketing. One element that comes through very clearly is the impact of different waves of migration on what Australians eat.
While Carter’s photographs are full of information and always have something to say, they are also beautifully composed. Despite the visual impact of his work, Carter says of himself ‘I don’t regard photography as an art form, although I know it can be for others. To me the camera is simply an unrivalled reporter’s tool. It is an aid to getting the story ‘properly true’, as the Aborigines say.’
Jeff Carter’s photographs have been published internationally in National Geographic, Paris Match, Life, and in Australia in every national magazine. He has also written and illustrated 20 books including People of the Inland (1966), The Life and Land of Central Australia (1967) and Stout Hearts and Leathery Hands (1968), and produced and filmed the television series Wild Country which screened nationally and overseas, with one of the episodes winning ‘Best Documentary’ at the 1974 Australian Film Industry Awards.
A selection of his photographs can be viewed in the Library’s
Catalogue
by typing in the search term: Jeff Carter.
—Michelle Hetherington
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