Roger Scott Queenscliff 1975ANMM Collection courtesy the photographer

Public programs and Education resources

National Collecting Institutions Touring & Outreach Program

This exhibition is supported by the National Collecting Institutions Touring and Outreach Program, an Australian Government program aiming to improve access to the national collections for all Australians.

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ABOUT THIS RESOURCEThis resource provides a context for engaging with photographs as a stimulus for discussion, analysis, research, interpretation, case studies and related activities. A broad approach allows access to a wide age group and is designed for both education and public programs.

Resources include a selection of prints and relevant information and activities which are neither prescriptive nor exhaustive. Teachers may adapt and reproduce material and language to suit a range of learning strategies, Conceptual Framework, Frames, outcomes and abilities of their students.

The icons below indicate the skills base for each activity.

to look to discuss

to write to read/research

to do to make something

RESOURCES INCLUDE PageExhibition content 2Photographic elements and techniques 3Student activities 4–6Artists’ biographies and photographs 7–13Self-guided tour 14Workshop activities 14Paper doll 15–17

CURRICULUM LINKSNSW Visual Arts Primary Stage 3: Making and AppreciatingSecondary Stages 4, 5 and 6: Artmaking, Critical and Historical StudiesPhotographic and digital mediaSecondary Stage 5: Making, Critical and Historical InterpretationsPhotography, video and digital imagingStage 6: Modules Wet Photography, Video, Digital Imaging

Victoria The ArtsLevels 4-10Secondary: VCE Art: Unit 1–4 Analytical VCE Studio Arts: Unit 3

EXHIBITION CONTENTIconic photographs capture Australian beach culture from the 1930s to today, from Max Dupain’s Sunbaker, Ray Leighton’s surfers posed with longboards, images from Jeff Carter’s 1960s surfing safari, and Roger Scott’s “critical moment” photographs, taken as an individual catches a wave or dives into the ocean. Anne Zahalka explores ideas of Australian cultural identity and stereotypes by reworking familiar images from the media and history of art. Narelle Autio provides a different view of the ocean swimmer from beneath the surface of the waves, and Ian Lever renders the beauty and moods of Sydney’s ocean pools at dawn and dusk.

Australian beach photographs

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PHOTOGRAPHIC ELEMENTS AND TECHNIQUES

Waves & Water – Australian beach photographs provides an opportunity to compare and contrast historical and contemporary practices and technologies used to represent different interpretations of subject matter. Photographs are enhanced by the selection and manipulation of photographic elements to engage the viewer.

Composition refers to the pleasing arrangement of subject matter within the picture frame. In The Bathers 1989, and The New Bathers 2013, Zahalka uses repetition of static poses, strong verticals and warm colour journeys to engage the viewer.

Framing is a key element to communicate meaning by directing the viewer’s attention towards the subject. In Tribal Gathering 1964, Carter uses the vertical surfboards and a single horizontal surfboard in the foreground to frame the figures.

Balance can be symmetrical or asymmetrical depending on the static or dynamic nature of the subject. In At Newport 1952, Dupain creates a symmetrical, horizontal foreground and background which provides stability and contrast for the asymmetrical balance of the figures at different levels.

Patterns are created through the repetition of lines, shapes, textures, colour and tonal variations. In Surf Sirens, Manly Beach 1946, Leighton emphasizes the repetitive pattern of radiating surfboards contrasting with the linear and floral patterns of swimsuits to focus attention on the subject.

Light and shade can enhance communication of mood and atmosphere especially in black and white photography. Dark shadows create volume and add to the balance of the scene.Dupain exploits this element in Sunbaker 1937. Autio creates an ethereal atmosphere in patterns of light and shade under water in Untitled 1990–2000. Silhouetted figures appear surreal and mysterious.

Simplicity can involve framing the subject using a viewfinder to select and isolate key shapes. Dupain’s Sunbaker 1937 is accentuated by foreshortening a well defined head and shoulders set against a blurred background.

Viewpoint and camera angles provide a means to control the composition with unusual or imaginative interpretations of subject matter. Leighton uses this effectively in Surf Sirens, Manly Beach 1946. Dupain and Zahalka also use this device to focus on their images of a sunbather.

Volume is the illusion of three dimensional forms in space which is explored in Dupain’s photographs and in Scott’s Queenscliff 1975.

Perspective relates to the way in which three dimensional objects are depicted in a two dimensional plane. In Yellow Cap Bronte 1994, Lever explores the visual impact of linear perspective to create the sensation of vanishing points within the picture plane or at finite points outside the picture plane. The figure adds human scale.

Other technical aspects relate to the selection of camera, film, digital imaging, focus, exposure, aperture, shutter speed, viewpoints, juxtapositions, editing and cropping, processing of negatives.

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STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIESVisual arts primary | Artmaking

1 Look at Anne Zahalka’s The Bathers 1989 and The New Bathers 2013 and Tribal Gathering 1964 by Jeff Carter. With reference to these photographs, create a class mural/panorama based on images of the beach. Using paint rollers and sponges, develop a beach environment similar to The Bathers. Select figures from the photographs. On large sheets of paper draw poses with bold contours. Use a combination of paint, collage, crayons and textas to define figures. Place cut-out figures on the background with emphasis on composition and overlapping shapes to communicate meaning.

2 Look at Untitled 1999–2000 by Narelle Autio. In a sunny outdoor area, students work in pairs to create coloured chalk shadow drawings which reflect their imagined underwater poses. Students re-interpret the freedom of movement, spatial relationships and strong tonal contrasts. Photograph the final artworks and mediate using photoshop to mount a class exhibition.

3 Students use digital cameras to record leisure and sporting activities. Develop computer generated imagery to create series of interpretive activities and environments which reflect ideas communicated in selected exhibition photographs.

Appreciating

4 Look at Queenscliff 1975 by Roger Scott. Explain Scott’s approach in taking the camera into the water to capture an unusual viewpoint. How does the use of diagonal direction and strong tonal contrasts attract the attention of the viewer?

5 Look at Yellow Cap Bronte 1994. How has Ian Lever’s capture of specific colours and tones show the movement of water and clouds in nature, as a contrast to the safety and stillness of the pool in the built environment? Why does he include a single human figure in the composition?

Extension

• Research the history of surfing in Australia. How do artworks and photographs contribute to our understanding of popular beach and surf culture?

• Compare and contrast Sunbaker 1937 by Max Dupain and The Sunbather #2 1989 by Anne Zahalka. Why has Anne Zahalka reinterpreted Dupain’s iconic image of beach culture? How has she changed the muscular, bronzed surfer? Explain how her use of colour and lighter tones changes the meaning of the subject.

• Which image do you prefer? Give reasons for your opinion.

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STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIESVisual arts Secondary | Artmaking

1 Select an exhibition photograph and develop an artwork which re-contextualises the image to challenge values and beliefs, social contexts, cultural identity or gender. Use a variety of media, techniques and texts to create intentional, contemporary meanings. Mediate images in black and white, sepia and colour and evaluate the impact of this on the visual qualities and interpretation of the image.

2 Refer to photographs which include figurative interpretations of beach culture. Develop a folio or body or work which explores body image with reference to iconic or stereotypical concepts of surf gods and goddesses. Emphasize specific formal elements and principles and stylistic qualities to communicate symbolic meaning.

3 Use computer graphics, imported images and a digital camera to explore the world of the beach as an expression of popular culture and personal experience. Focus on structural and cultural elements and visual codes to communicate differing levels of interpretation by a contemporary audience. Compare your artwork to photographs in the exhibition. Examine similarities and differences in your interpretation of a similar theme.

Critical and Historical Studies

4 Select a range of exhibition images and postcards which reflect changing social attitudes to beach culture. Develop a visual time line to explore how changing visual technologies and graphics have altered ways in which people relate to beach culture and identity as individuals and groups. Why did people buy postcards and why are they so collectable today? To what extent do postcards and photographs inform audience understandings of popular culture from a contemporary viewpoint?

5 In Yellow Cap Bronte 1994, Ian Lever explores a formalist landscape tradition. Explain how he focuses on elements such as perspective, informal balance, gradation of tone and colour, textures and human scale to express atmospheric conditions. Research artists who have depicted similar interpretation of the sea and analyse their use of formal elements, stylistic qualities and possible interpretations

Extension: case study

The Bathers 1989 Anne Zahalka The New Bathers 2013 Anne Zahalka

Research Australian Beach Pattern 1940 by Charles Meere

How has Anne Zahalka changed visual codes and conventions to comment on the role of women. To what extent does she use pastiche and irony to engage the viewer in a reflective process to challenge interpretations of place, identity and culture in terms of what it means to be “Australian”.

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1 Max Dupain’s Sunbaker 1937 is regarded as an Australian icon. Explain how Dupain has used formal qualities such as low viewpoint, strong tonal contrasts and sculptural lines to reflect a modernist expression of the cult of the body as a social construction of meaning. Using a digital camera, interpret a similar subject to create a new visual reality by altering the viewpoint, tones, textures and shadows. Add colour.

2 In At Newport 1952 by Max Dupain, describe the composition with reference to viewpoint, balance, focal point, light source, textures, tonal qualities and shadow. Explain how these qualities communicate a popular leisure activity. Describe a range of interpretations relating to shared experiences and place.

3 Ray Leighton was a fashion photographer specialising in swimwear. How is this evident in Surf Sirens, Manly Beach 1946? What compositional devices are used to capture the attention of the viewer? Explain how this image relates to the traditional theme of beach beauties. How could this image challenge notions of gender in a male-dominated sport?

4 Tribal Gathering 1964 by Jeff Carter represents photo-journalism as a documentary record of time and place. Explain how he records changes in dress, habits and aspects of beach culture. Analyse how formal elements and composition are used to frame the surfers.

5 Explain how Queenscliff 1975 by Roger Scott marks a shift in approach to photographing surf culture. How has taking the camera into the water captured a “critical moment” of direct connection with the subject? List visual effects which enhance the composition.

6 Research Anne Zahalka’s approach to photography. In The Bathers 1989, outline how she has used compositional devices, neo-classical forms and multi-cultural and gender references to create a postmodern interpretation of beach culture. How has Zahalka change the work in her recent version of this photograph The New Bathers 2013. Appropriate Zahalka’s techniques to create a subjective response to the beach.

7 Yellow Cap Bronte 1994 by Ian Lever represents a grand narrative, referenced through the genre of seascape. Develop a short film/video which explores a similar theme from both traditional and contemporary viewpoints of time and place.

Emphasise visual codes and symbols to enhance dramatic aspects of mood and atmosphere.

8 Look at Untitled 1999–2000 by Narelle Autio. Explain how she has effectively communicated a surreal and ethereal mood of “liquid light.” How does this image depend on chance and the sensing of elements forming around the photographer?

Extension

Write a critical review of the exhibition Waves & Water – Australian beach photographs.

STUDENTS’ ACTIVITIESPhotographic and digital media | Photography, video and digital imaging

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Max Dupain 1911–1992

Max Dupain was a precocious talent who produced a massive body of work of abstraction, portraiture, architecture and Australian life in his commercial art practice. His beach images from the 1930s have come to define the rise of a sundrenched Australian beach culture.

Dupain’s interest in form, line and perspective was well served by the contrasts of the beach landscape – the strength of the light, sun, shadow, surf, sand and horizon. So too the muscularity of the surflife saver, athleticism of the swimmer, and the geometry of languid bodies on the sand were remade in Dupain’s modernist aesthetic. He captured perfectly the indelible transformation of the beach to an active site of tanned athletic beach bodies.

Max Dupain Sunbaker 1937Silver gelatin photograph, printed 1987ANMM Collection

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Ray Leighton 1917–2002

Ray Leighton trained in a commercial studio from 1932, opening his own business in 1946. With Max Dupain he became one of Sydney’s most prolific professional photographers with diverse subject interests.

Steeped in Manly’s surfing community Leighton produced memorable images of friends surfing and hanging out. His beach was alive. It was a time when long boards ruled and surfers congregated at clubs on the beach to store their cumbersome boards which were impossible to transport. Leighton made long boards, with his badged board seen in one of the images here.

Many of these photographs were published in magazine and newspapers at the time. This edition was printed by next generation beach photographer Roger Scott with Ray Leighton’s oversight.

Ray Leighton Surf Sirens, Manly Beach 1946 Silver gelatin photograph, printed 1998Edition number 4/98ANMM Collection

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Jeff Carter 1928–2010

Soon after leaving school at the end of World War II, Jeff Carter went on the road as an itinerant farmer and labourer. Always with his camera and typewriter at his side, he was determined to be an independent photographer and writer.

From the 1950s Carter began selling his photographic essays to magazines like Pix, People, and Walkabout. He used an East German Ikonta camera with square shaped film, and then a 35mm Nikon. From the 1960s Carter’s telephoto lens enabled him to discretely frame moments in the everyday lives of his subjects – ordinary people.

The rise of surfing, subcultures and street life at holiday sites including the Gold Coast were among Carter’s many studies illustrated in the 20 books he wrote.

Jeff Carter 1928-2010Tribal Gathering 1964Silver gelatin photograph, printed 1996ANMM Collection Reproduced courtesy Van Carter

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Roger Scottborn 1944

Roger Scott was a photojournalist, always looking for that decisive moment. A keen bodysurfer, he immersed himself in the waves capturing a radically different perspective from those before him. The spontaneity and exuberance of swimmers in the rolling surf became his subject.

Scott began experimenting with an underwater camera from 1969, a Nikonos 35mm. Lolling about with it strung around his neck, he was able to take his fellow swimmers by surprise, waiting in the water where personal space disappears, shooting rolls of film, looking for that moment in the odd and the typical.

Scott had a high failure rate; he was often knocked down by the surf, while globules of water obscured his lens. The images remain fresh though – swimmers pop up, rise with the swell, do handstands or roar along the disappearing crest of a wave.

Roger Scott Queenscliff 1975Silver gelatin photograph, printed 1994ANMM Collection Reproduced courtesy the photographer

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Narelle Autio born 1969

In 1999 Narelle Autio and her partner Trent Parke (born 1971), both photojournalists at the Sydney Morning Herald, embarked on a body of work about their youthful fantasies gambolling in the ocean.

Together they probed the different energies of their childhood beaches – Autio’s flat calming Gulf St Vincent around Adelaide and Parke’s powerful Pacific Ocean at Newcastle.

The Seventh Wave series is the result of this study. Delving deeper than Roger Scott physically and also perhaps emotionally, these big, bold otherworldly images show bodies from underneath – a fish’s perspective. What lurks beneath is raw, compelling, sometimes sensuous, dangerous, serene and above all suspenseful.

Narelle Autio Untitled 1999 – 2000Digital C type printEdition 1/15ANMM CollectionReproduced courtesy of Narelle Autio and Trent Parke

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Ian Leverborn 1946

Ian Lever, a keen surfer, began exhibiting in 1987 after a career managing black and white laboratories in Sydney and overseas. Long hours in the darkroom imbued in him a strong appreciation of light and its nuances in composition, form and mood, and prompted his move to colour photography. Nature is his collaborator.

Lever’s Pools series arose from a project he did in 1994 with The National Trust of Australia to document Sydney’s ocean and harbour baths. These large scale photographs, romantic interpretations of ocean baths, highlight the effect of light on water and the hues of the day. As well as being contemplative sites, these photographs show expansive panoramic landscapes, painterly in intent. They take us away from the active swimmer to the mystical allure of the water and the coastline, to an emotional immersion.

Ian Lever Yellow Cap Bronte 1994Ilfochrome photographANMM CollectionReproduced courtesy the photographer

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Anne Zahalkaborn 1957

Anne Zahalka composes startling tableaux as playful inquiries into ideas about cultural identity and representation, challenging photographic conventions such as the pursuit of the decisive moment.

In this early series from 1989, Bondi: Playground of the Pacific, Zahalka explored the role images of the beach have played in constructions of Australian identity. She referenced well-known paintings like Charles Meere’s Australian Beach Pattern, and iconic beach photographs by Max Dupain and Olive Cotton. Zahalka reinterpreted these images to question stereotypes and unveil their illusory nature, historically and today. Zahalka’s beach is populated by pale skinned redheads, Japanese surfers, Southern European beachgoers and in her most recent work, burqa-clad swimmers.

Anne Zahalka The Bathers 1989type C colour photographANMM Collection Reproduced courtesy the photographer

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What to look for

SELF GUIDED TOUR WORKSHOP ACTIVITIES AND IDEAS

genres including seascapes, landscapes, beach culture, portraiture

traditional and contemporary lifestyles

iconic images of bronzed surfers and beach beauties

leisure activities

cultural and national identity

formal photographic qualities

subject matter, focal point and placement

composition and perspective

lighting, tonal variations and contrasts

patterns of shapes, lines and textures

viewpoint and camera angles

symmetrical and asymmetrical balance

background and foreground elements

atmospheric qualities and moods

1 View the exhibition and explore subject matter, formal elements and photographic techniques. Participants use digital cameras to record images relating to the theme of waves and water with emphasis on beach and surf culture, seascapes, pools or other waterways. Explore a range of genres to communicate aspects of gender, glamour, athleticism, adventure, leisure, awe and wonder.

Encourage participants to use panoramic views, viewfinders, zoom lens, different camera angles, viewpoints and perspectives to create focal points. Select and display images at the exhibition venue and/or upload to the venue website.

Extension Use Photoshop to mediate the photographs to create a narrative or storyboard which captures the spirit of time and place, the here and now. Process images in black and white, sepia and colour to communicate specific moods and meanings.

2 Suitcase Examine the contents of the suitcase. Identify items of swimwear and accessories by comparing styles with photographs in the exhibition. Explain how these items reflect changing aspects of popular beach and surf culture. What was the role of the media in publishing photographs and articles on current trends? How did swimwear styles such as the bikini and “budgie smugglers’” challenge conventional beliefs and values?

3 Paper doll Photocopy the pro-forma doll and swimming costumes. Participants cut out the doll and costumes with tabs. With reference to exhibition photographs, identify costume styles and eras. Use paint, fabrics, coloured papers, crayons, coloured pencils or textas to create colours and patterns reflective of the selected era. Date each costume to indicate a fashion timeline. Participants could co-ordinate a mini-fashion parade of dressed dolls with a brief commentary on the swimwear style and its relevance to a specific photograph in the exhibition.

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1 1890s – Women’s bathing costume and hat

2 1910s – Unisex bathing costume

3 1930s – Two piece mens’ bathing trunks and top

4 1950s – Two piece women’s bathing suit and cap

5 Bikini

6 Burkini

PAPER DOLLS

1 2

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3 4 5

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6