Robert McFarlane (photographer)
Encyclopedia
Robert McFarlane is an Australian photographer and photographic critic.
, South Australia
in 1942, he was given a Kodak Box Brownie at the age of 9 by his parents, Bill and Poppy McFarlane. Five years later, while at Brighton High School (today known as Brighton Secondary School
) in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, he experienced the power of photography first hand, when he used a recently purchased Durst medium format
rangefinder camera
to capture an image of a teacher striking a pupil at the school assembly.
Though talented in English and History, McFarlane was an undistinguished student and left school at 16, finding work as a trainee electric welder. He was deeply influenced , however, by the travelling documentary photography exhibition The Family Of Man
, which reached Adelaide in 1959.
to photograph Professor John Bishop, co-founder of the Adelaide Festival Of Arts
. On the same assignment he also made images of author Patrick White
, dancer and choreographer Sir Robert Helpmann, actor John Bell
and painter Sidney Nolan
.
In 1963 McFarlane moved to Sydney
, working for The Bulletin
and Australian Vogue
. With the artist Kate Burness, who became his first wife, he travelled to London in 1969, where he freelanced for The Daily Telegraph Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine and NOVA
magazine. He returned to Sydney in 1973 and eventually to Adelaide in 2007. McFarlane was later married to the theatre director Mary-Ann Vale and has two children, Morgan (1974-1994, born to Kate Burness) and Billy (born 1990, to Mary-Ann Vale).
Though McFarlane specialises in social issues – he is currently working on a book documenting mental illness – and performance, he has also taken portraits of a number of notable figures in Australian and international life. These include fellow photographers W Eugene Smith
, Don McCullin
, Jeff Carter
, Max Dupain
, David Moore
, Trent Parke
and Stephen Dupont; political figures such as Bob Hawke
, Gough Whitlam
, Charlie Perkins and Pauline Hanson
; renowned surgeon Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop
; jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli
; boxer Henry Cooper
; and Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun
. His theatrical work has seen him cover a number of plays featuring Steven Berkoff
, and he photographed the early performances of Geoffrey Rush
, Cate Blanchett
and Robyn Archer
. McFarlane has also worked as a stills photographer
for film directors such as Bruce Beresford
, John Duigan
, Gillian Armstrong
, Esben Storm
, Phillip Noyce
, and PJ Hogan.
In 1985, in the lead up to the 1988 bicentenary of Australia’s European settlement
, McFarlane was among 21 photographers chosen to live and work in remote Aboriginal communities in a project that became known as After 200 Years: Photographic Essays Of Aboriginal And Islander Australia Today. It remains the largest single photographic project in Australian history, and was published both as a touring exhibition and a book.
McFarlane’s work is held in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery
(Canberra), the National Gallery Of Australia
, the Art Gallery Of New South Wales
, the Art Gallery Of South Australia
and the National Library Of Australia
. His most prominent recent exhibition is Received Moments, a 48-year career retrospective, which began touring Australia in December 2009 and concludes in Adelaide in late 2011. McFarlane was a significant contributor to Candid Camera: Australian Photography 1950s–1970s
at the Art Gallery Of South Australia (May to August 2010) which also featured the work of key Australian photographers Max Dupain
, David Moore
, Jeff Carter
, Mervyn Bishop
, Rennie Ellis
, Carol Jerrems
and Roger Scott
.
McFarlane has written extensively about photography for a number of Australian publications, and was photographic critic for the Sydney Morning Herald for more than 25 years. He currently writes and maintains a website called OzPhotoReview, a blog focusing primarily on fine art and documentary photography in Australia while also discussing technical developments.
’s “decisive moment,” McFarlane’s formulation is seen as being “gentler, more contemplative”. By suggesting the need for the photographer to remain open to the world around, it also has the advantage of containing the seed of a photographic method. Gael Newton
, senior curator of photography at the National Gallery Of Australia, has written about McFarlane’s approach and quotes him as saying “I see making pictures as a receiving of the image. Where you stand, both physically and emotionally, decrees the kind of picture you, through your camera, will receive.”
Early life
Born in AdelaideAdelaide
Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and the fifth-largest city in Australia. Adelaide has an estimated population of more than 1.2 million...
, South Australia
South Australia
South Australia is a state of Australia in the southern central part of the country. It covers some of the most arid parts of the continent; with a total land area of , it is the fourth largest of Australia's six states and two territories.South Australia shares borders with all of the mainland...
in 1942, he was given a Kodak Box Brownie at the age of 9 by his parents, Bill and Poppy McFarlane. Five years later, while at Brighton High School (today known as Brighton Secondary School
Brighton Secondary School
Brighton Secondary School resides in Brighton, a beach suburb of Adelaide, South Australia. The school provides secondary education from year 8 to 12, with programs in music and volleyball...
) in Adelaide’s southern suburbs, he experienced the power of photography first hand, when he used a recently purchased Durst medium format
Medium format
Medium format has traditionally referred to a film format in still photography and the related cameras and equipment that use that film. Generally, the term applies to film and digital cameras that record images on media larger than 24 by 36 mm , but smaller than 4 by 5 inches .In digital...
rangefinder camera
Rangefinder camera
A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus...
to capture an image of a teacher striking a pupil at the school assembly.
Though talented in English and History, McFarlane was an undistinguished student and left school at 16, finding work as a trainee electric welder. He was deeply influenced , however, by the travelling documentary photography exhibition The Family Of Man
The Family of Man
The Family of Man was a photography exhibition curated by Edward Steichen first shown in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York.According to Steichen, the exhibition represented the 'culmination of his career'. The 508 photos by 273 photographers in 68 countries were selected from almost 2...
, which reached Adelaide in 1959.
Career
Encouraged by his employers during a brief stint as a copy boy in an advertising agency, he began to work more seriously as a photojournalist, gaining a commission from Walkabout magazineWalkabout magazine
Walkabout was an Australian illustrated magazine published from 1934 to 1974 combining cultural, geographic, and scientific content with travel literature. Initially a travel magazine, in its forty-year run it featured a popular mix of articles by travellers, officials, residents, journalists, and...
to photograph Professor John Bishop, co-founder of the Adelaide Festival Of Arts
Adelaide Festival of Arts
The Adelaide Festival of Arts is an arts festival held biennially in the South Australian capital of Adelaide. Although locally considered to be one of the world's greatest celebrations of the arts, that is internationally renowned and the pre-eminent cultural event in Australia, it is actually...
. On the same assignment he also made images of author Patrick White
Patrick White
Patrick Victor Martindale White , an Australian author, is widely regarded as an important English-language novelist of the 20th century. From 1935 until his death, he published 12 novels, two short-story collections and eight plays.White's fiction employs humour, florid prose, shifting narrative...
, dancer and choreographer Sir Robert Helpmann, actor John Bell
John Bell (actor)
John Anthony Bell, AO, OBE is an Australian actor and theatre director.Bell was born 1 November 1940 in the town of Maitland, New South Wales where he was educated at the Marist Brothers....
and painter Sidney Nolan
Sidney Nolan
Sir Sidney Robert Nolan OM, AC was one of Australia's best-known painters and printmakers.-Early life:Nolan was born in Carlton, a suburb of Melbourne, on 22 April 1917. He was the eldest of four children. His family later moved to St Kilda. Nolan attended the Brighton Road State School and...
.
In 1963 McFarlane moved to Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
, working for The Bulletin
The Bulletin
The Bulletin was an Australian weekly magazine that was published in Sydney from 1880 until January 2008. It was influential in Australian culture and politics from about 1890 until World War I, the period when it was identified with the "Bulletin school" of Australian literature. Its influence...
and Australian Vogue
Vogue (magazine)
Vogue is a fashion and lifestyle magazine that is published monthly in 18 national and one regional edition by Condé Nast.-History:In 1892 Arthur Turnure founded Vogue as a weekly publication in the United States. When he died in 1909, Condé Montrose Nast picked up the magazine and slowly began...
. With the artist Kate Burness, who became his first wife, he travelled to London in 1969, where he freelanced for The Daily Telegraph Magazine, The Sunday Times Magazine and NOVA
Nova (UK magazine)
Nova, published from March 1965 to October 1975, was a British magazine. It has been described as "a politically radical, beautifully designed, intellectual women's magazine"....
magazine. He returned to Sydney in 1973 and eventually to Adelaide in 2007. McFarlane was later married to the theatre director Mary-Ann Vale and has two children, Morgan (1974-1994, born to Kate Burness) and Billy (born 1990, to Mary-Ann Vale).
Though McFarlane specialises in social issues – he is currently working on a book documenting mental illness – and performance, he has also taken portraits of a number of notable figures in Australian and international life. These include fellow photographers W Eugene Smith
W. Eugene Smith
William Eugene Smith was an American photojournalist known for his refusal to compromise professional standards and his brutally vivid World War II photographs.- Life and work :...
, Don McCullin
Don McCullin
Donald McCullin, FRPS CBE is an internationally known British photojournalist, particularly recognized for his war photography and images of urban strife...
, Jeff Carter
Jeff Carter (photographer)
Jeff Carter was an Australian photographer and author.-Early life:Carter was born to Percy and Doris Carter in Melbourne in August 1928 in Victoria and attended Melbourne Boys High School. By the time he matriculated in 1946, his three major passions were clear – photography, writing and travel....
, Max Dupain
Max Dupain
Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC was a renowned Australian modernist photographer.-Early life:Dupain received his first camera as a gift in 1924, spurring his interest in photography He later joined the Photographic Society of NSW, and when he left school, he worked for Cecil Bostock in Sydney.-Early...
, David Moore
David Moore (photographer)
David Moore was an Australian photojournalist.Moore was educated at Geelong Grammar School. He began his career in the studio of Russell Roberts in Sydney, moving on to work with Max Dupain soon after...
, Trent Parke
Trent Parke
Trent Parke is an Australian photographer.Parke was born and brought up in Newcastle ; he now lives in Sydney. He started photography when he was twelve. In 2003 he and his wife the photographer Narelle Autio made a 90,000 km trip around Australia, resulting in the series and book "Minutes to...
and Stephen Dupont; political figures such as Bob Hawke
Bob Hawke
Robert James Lee "Bob" Hawke AC GCL was the 23rd Prime Minister of Australia from March 1983 to December 1991 and therefore longest serving Australian Labor Party Prime Minister....
, Gough Whitlam
Gough Whitlam
Edward Gough Whitlam, AC, QC , known as Gough Whitlam , served as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia. Whitlam led the Australian Labor Party to power at the 1972 election and retained government at the 1974 election, before being dismissed by Governor-General Sir John Kerr at the climax of the...
, Charlie Perkins and Pauline Hanson
Pauline Hanson
Pauline Lee Hanson is an Australian politician and former leader of Pauline Hanson's One Nation, a political party with a populist and anti-multiculturalism platform...
; renowned surgeon Sir Edward “Weary” Dunlop
Edward Dunlop
Lieutenant Colonel Sir Ernest Edward "Weary" Dunlop, AC, CMG, OBE was an Australian surgeon who was renowned for his leadership while being held prisoner by the Japanese during World War II.-Early life and family:...
; jazz violinist Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli
Stéphane Grappelli was a French jazz violinist who founded the Quintette du Hot Club de France with guitarist Django Reinhardt in 1934. It was one of the first all-string jazz bands....
; boxer Henry Cooper
Henry Cooper
Henry Cooper may refer to:*Sir Henry Cooper , British Heavyweight boxer*Henry Cooper from Tennessee*Henry Cooper , English recipient of the Victoria Cross...
; and Atlantic Records co-founder Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegun
Ahmet Ertegün was a Turkish American musician and businessman, best known as the founder and president of Atlantic Records. He also wrote classic blues and pop songs and served as Chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and museum...
. His theatrical work has seen him cover a number of plays featuring Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff
Steven Berkoff is an English actor, writer and director. Best known for his performance as General Orlov in the James Bond film Octopussy, he is typically cast in villanous roles, such as Lt...
, and he photographed the early performances of Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Roy Rush is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting , three British Academy Film Awards , two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen...
, Cate Blanchett
Cate Blanchett
Catherine Élise "Cate" Blanchett is an Australian actress. She came to international attention for her role as Elizabeth I of England in the 1998 biopic film Elizabeth, for which she won British Academy of Film and Television Arts and Golden Globe Awards, and earned her first Academy Award...
and Robyn Archer
Robyn Archer
Robyn Archer AO CdOAL is an Australian singer, writer, stage and director, artistic director, and public advocate of the arts, in Australia and internationally.-Life:Archer was born Robyn Smith in Prospect, South Australia...
. McFarlane has also worked as a stills photographer
Unit still photographer
A unit still photographer or simply, stills photographer is a person who creates still photographic images specifically intended for use in the marketing and publicity of feature films in the motion picture industry and network television productions....
for film directors such as Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford
Bruce Beresford is an Australian film director who has made more than 30 feature films over a 40-year career.-Early life:...
, John Duigan
John Duigan
John Duigan, is an Australian film director.Duigan emigrated to Australia in 1961, having been born to an Australian father...
, Gillian Armstrong
Gillian Armstrong
Gillian May Armstrong is an award-winning Australian director of feature films and documentaries.- Career :Born in Melbourne, Victoria, Gillian Armstrong grew up in the eastern suburb of Mitcham. She graduated from Swinburne Technical College in 1968 where she studied theatrical costume design and...
, Esben Storm
Esben Storm
Esben Storm was a Danish-born Australian actor, screenwriter, television producer and director, well known for his work with Australian children's program Round the Twist. He worked to adapt John Marsden's Tomorrow series but lost the rights to the film...
, Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce
Phillip Noyce is an Australian film director.-Life and career:Noyce was born in Griffith, New South Wales, attended Barker College, Sydney, and began making short films at the age of 18, starting with Better to Reign in Hell, using his friends as the cast...
, and PJ Hogan.
In 1985, in the lead up to the 1988 bicentenary of Australia’s European settlement
Australian Bicentenary
The bicentenary of Australia was celebrated in 1970 on the 200th anniversary of Captain James Cook landing and claiming the land, and again in 1988 to celebrate 200 years of permanent European settlement.-1970:...
, McFarlane was among 21 photographers chosen to live and work in remote Aboriginal communities in a project that became known as After 200 Years: Photographic Essays Of Aboriginal And Islander Australia Today. It remains the largest single photographic project in Australian history, and was published both as a touring exhibition and a book.
McFarlane’s work is held in the permanent collections of the National Portrait Gallery
National Portrait Gallery (Australia)
The National Portrait Gallery of Australia is a collection of portraits of prominent Australians that are important in their field of endeavour or whose life sets them apart as an individual of long-term public interest...
(Canberra), the National Gallery Of Australia
National Gallery of Australia
The National Gallery of Australia is the national art gallery of Australia, holding more than 120,000 works of art. It was established in 1967 by the Australian government as a national public art gallery.- Establishment :...
, the Art Gallery Of New South Wales
Art Gallery of New South Wales
The Art Gallery of New South Wales , located in The Domain in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, was established in 1897 and is the most important public gallery in Sydney and the fourth largest in Australia...
, the Art Gallery Of South Australia
Art Gallery of South Australia
The Art Gallery of South Australia , located on the cultural boulevard of North Terrace in Adelaide, is the premier visual arts museum in the Australian state of South Australia. It has a collection of over 35,000 works of art, making it, after the National Gallery of Victoria, the largest state...
and the National Library Of Australia
National Library of Australia
The National Library of Australia is the largest reference library of Australia, responsible under the terms of the National Library Act for "maintaining and developing a national collection of library material, including a comprehensive collection of library material relating to Australia and the...
. His most prominent recent exhibition is Received Moments, a 48-year career retrospective, which began touring Australia in December 2009 and concludes in Adelaide in late 2011. McFarlane was a significant contributor to Candid Camera: Australian Photography 1950s–1970s
Candid Camera (Australian photographic exhibition)
Candid Camera: Australian Photography 1950s–1970s was a group retrospective exhibition of social documentary photography held at the Art Gallery of South Australia from 28 May to 1 August 2010....
at the Art Gallery Of South Australia (May to August 2010) which also featured the work of key Australian photographers Max Dupain
Max Dupain
Maxwell Spencer Dupain AC was a renowned Australian modernist photographer.-Early life:Dupain received his first camera as a gift in 1924, spurring his interest in photography He later joined the Photographic Society of NSW, and when he left school, he worked for Cecil Bostock in Sydney.-Early...
, David Moore
David Moore (photographer)
David Moore was an Australian photojournalist.Moore was educated at Geelong Grammar School. He began his career in the studio of Russell Roberts in Sydney, moving on to work with Max Dupain soon after...
, Jeff Carter
Jeff Carter (photographer)
Jeff Carter was an Australian photographer and author.-Early life:Carter was born to Percy and Doris Carter in Melbourne in August 1928 in Victoria and attended Melbourne Boys High School. By the time he matriculated in 1946, his three major passions were clear – photography, writing and travel....
, Mervyn Bishop
Mervyn Bishop
Mervyn Bishop is an Australian news and documentary photographer. Joining the Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet in 1962 or 1963, he was the first Aboriginal Australian to work on a metropolitan daily newspaper and one of the first Aboriginal Australians to become a professional photographer...
, Rennie Ellis
Rennie Ellis
Reynolds Mark "Rennie" Ellis was an Australian social and social documentary photographer who also worked, at various stages of his life, as an advertising copywriter, seaman, lecturer, and television presenter...
, Carol Jerrems
Carol Jerrems
Carol Jerrems was an Australian photographer who produced the image Vale Street. She documented the counter-culture spirit of Melbourne in the 1970s...
and Roger Scott
Roger Scott (photographer)
Roger Scott is an Australian social documentary photographer and photographic printer.In December 2001 he published a retrospective of his work, Roger Scott: From the Street, with a foreword by Gael Newton, senior curator of photography at the Australian National Gallery...
.
McFarlane has written extensively about photography for a number of Australian publications, and was photographic critic for the Sydney Morning Herald for more than 25 years. He currently writes and maintains a website called OzPhotoReview, a blog focusing primarily on fine art and documentary photography in Australia while also discussing technical developments.
The Received Moment
Though McFarlane has not written extensively on the subject himself, his idea of the “received moment” has attracted media and curatorial attention. Related in some ways to Henri Cartier-BressonHenri Cartier-Bresson
Henri Cartier-Bresson was a French photographer considered to be the father of modern photojournalism. He was an early adopter of 35 mm format, and the master of candid photography...
’s “decisive moment,” McFarlane’s formulation is seen as being “gentler, more contemplative”. By suggesting the need for the photographer to remain open to the world around, it also has the advantage of containing the seed of a photographic method. Gael Newton
Gael Newton
Gael Newton is the Senior Curator of Australian and International Photography at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra.From 1974 to 1985 Newton was the foundation curator of photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Newton then moved to Canberra and from 1985 to 1988, was the...
, senior curator of photography at the National Gallery Of Australia, has written about McFarlane’s approach and quotes him as saying “I see making pictures as a receiving of the image. Where you stand, both physically and emotionally, decrees the kind of picture you, through your camera, will receive.”