Max Dupain and the photography of Australian architecture

This thesis considers Max Dupain (1911-1992) and his contribution to the development of architectural photography in Australia. Through his continuous and prolific output over six decades of professional photography Dupain greatly stimulated awareness of and interest in Australian architecture. Before Dupain began specialising in the field, little consistent professional architectural photography had been practised in Australia. He and some of his close associates subsequently developed architectural photography as both a specialised branch of photography and - perhaps more significantly - as a necessary adjunct to architectural practice. In achieving these dual accomplishments, Dupain and like-minded practitioners succeeded in elevating architectural photography to the status of a discipline in its own right. They also gave Australians generally a deeper understanding of the heritage represented by the nation's built environment. At the same time, some of the photographic images he created became firmly fixed in the public imagination as historical icons within the development of a distinctive Australian tradition in the visual arts. Within his chosen field Dupain was the dominant Australian figure of his time. He was instrumental in breaking the link with Pictorialism by bringing Modernist and Documentary perspectives to Australian architectural photography. He was an innovator in the earlier decades of his professional career, however, his photographic techniques and practice did not develop beyond that. By the end of the 1980s he had largely lost touch with the technology and techniques of contemporary practice. Dupain's reputation, which has continued growing since his death in 1992, therefore arises from reasons other than his photographic images alone. It reflects his accomplishment in raising his fellow citizens' awareness of a worthwhile home-grown artistic tradition.

Through their eyes: Seeing experiences of Settlement in photographs taken by refugee background youth in Melbourne, Australia

Although “refugees” are frequently represented in visual media, it is predominantly as the central subject matter and rarely are they positioned as the photographers of their own journeys. In this article we present photographic images that have been taken by refugee background youth portraying their experiences of the first years of settlement in Australia. We consider how, in our longitudinal research conducted with 120 refugee background youth, visual materials can provide equally important yet different insights in comparison to written or spoken narratives on the experiences of refugee settlement. Through an examination of over 1,000 photos taken by these youth, we explore the ways in which they portrayed their early experiences of external suburban settlement environments and their depictions of interior spaces and home-making practices. We discuss how these visual insights capture an alternative way of seeing the experiences of becoming at home as the youth become emplaced post-resettlement in Australia. We argue that the photographs taken by these refugee background youth illustrate how visual methods and materials can provide equally important but often overlooked insights into early settlement experiences. Importantly, the photographic images offer a way of portraying the people, places and sentiments that are central to the everyday lives of refugee background youths in ways that oral and written narratives can not.

37° Sur a 19° Norte: Fotografía contemporánea de Australia

Curatorial considerations, aims and objectives:The title for this exhibition (37 ° South to 19 ° North) refers to the Latitude of Melbourne, Australia and Cuernavaca, Mexico.My curatorial objective for making such a reference to the geographical was to invoke a sense of both distance and connection between the two locations of Australia and Mexico and to also create a sense of sharing, not only between our distant landscapes and cultures but also between the feelings and emotions that we all experience in response to the places in which we live out the moments which make up our daily lives.In developing this project I considered the work of more than 35 contemporary Australian photographers and finally selected 15 photographers (including myself). Most of these artists have or have had close connection to Melbourne and to the southern/eastern line of Australian continent. The final selection ranged from Hobart to Maroochydore and one artist who had lived in Melbourne for many years but was now living in Mexico. These photographers (and the specific works) were selected because their long term creative practice captures a sense of location (place and space) with a deep introspective sensibility which I feel offers a viewer a personal and softly spoken vision of some particular aspect of an Australian location, be that exterior landscape or interior place and a sense of unique connection to such places. These images are not documents but rather representations of feelings, stories, memories and dreams which emerge in the milieu of our inhabitants.In selecting the works, careful consideration was also given to diversity of approaches to photographic practice in conjunction to thematic content. Formats and media included black and white, pin hole photography, toy camera, large format (both 4” x 5” and 10”x 8”), phone camera, various digital camera images and other experimental approaches. The local art scene in Cuernavaca is very strong and there is a strong interest in photography. This is partially due to the number of local arts schools and universities which offer studies in photography as well as the political dimension regarding Mexican art in general - as a tool of both political media, reportage and documentary work, photography is a significant medium for many of the people who would be visiting the exhibition. I therefore felt it was important to address the diversity of approaches to the medium which are currently being explored by Australian practitioners.The City Museum of Cuernavaca provided two large walls and some smaller sections of side walls on both the grounds level and the upper level of the main museum galleries for exhibition.The works were arranged with a simple thematic structure. Top level, left to right, then bottom level, left to right starting with images which presented a sense of wilderness and landscape (which were also quite abstract and reductive) to more representational landscape images moving to landscape with small figures (people) emerging within the images (Ash Kerr) to landscapes with larger figures and the emerging presence of man-made elements to urban landscapes and then to interior urban scapes and finally to interior locations with people and finally finishing on the metaphorical image by Harry Nankin of Bogong Moths and the politics of climate change. (It is also interesting to note that the migration path of the Bongong moth matches well the distribution of the artists selected for this project)Broadly speaking the images started outside with broad landscape to intimate interior locations. With these works a great deal of personal content from each photographer was presented. Most artists chose to present 3 large format images while some only presented 2 images. Other graphic and visual elements were considered in the final placement of the images.It must also be noted that the artists selected ranged broadly from very highly established and significant local artists to mid-career/younger establishing artist to some lesser known and emerging artists. From a curatorial perspective I feel this is offers the possibility of what I shall term, a more balanced representation of the local Australian practice and it provides a context in which both established and emerging artists / works must engage on a dialogue, within the exhibition. I believe it also placing the curatorial premise on the strength of the work rather than on whom the artists are and their status. It also supports the younger emerging artists and provides a less formal and predictable outcome for the established artists and for as a collective presentation as a whole.

Weather variability, tides, and Barmah Forest Virus Disease in the Gladstone region, Australia

In this study we examined the impact of weather variability and tides on the transmission of Barmah Forest virus (BFV) disease and developed a weather-based forecasting model for BFV disease in the Gladstone region, Australia. We used seasonal autoregressive integrated moving-average (SARIMA) models to determine the contribution of weather variables to BFV transmission after the time-series data of response and explanatory variables were made stationary through seasonal differencing. We obtained data on the monthly counts of BFV cases, weather variables (e.g., mean minimum and maximum temperature, total rainfall, and mean relative humidity), high and low tides, and the population size in the Gladstone region between January 1992 and December 2001 from the Queensland Department of Health, Australian Bureau of Meteorology, Queensland Department of Transport, and Australian Bureau of Statistics, respectively. The SARIMA model shows that the 5-month moving average of minimum temperature (β = 0.15, p-value < 0.001) was statistically significantly and positively associated with BFV disease, whereas high tide in the current month (β = −1.03, p-value = 0.04) was statistically significantly and inversely associated with it. However, no significant association was found for other variables. These results may be applied to forecast the occurrence of BFV disease and to use public health resources in BFV control and prevention.

Cross-correlations between weather variables in Australia

The information on climate variations is essential for the research of many subjects, such as the performance of buildings and agricultural production. However, recorded meteorological data are often incomplete. There may be a limited number of locations recorded, while the number of recorded climatic variables and the time intervals can also be inadequate. Therefore, the hourly data of key weather parameters as required by many building simulation programmes are typically not readily available. To overcome this gap in measured information, several empirical methods and weather data generators have been developed. They generally employ statistical analysis techniques to model the variations of individual climatic variables, while the possible interactions between different weather parameters are largely ignored. Based on a statistical analysis of 10 years historical hourly climatic data over all capital cities in Australia, this paper reports on the finding of strong correlations between several specific weather variables. It is found that there are strong linear correlations between the hourly variations of global solar irradiation (GSI) and dry bulb temperature (DBT), and between the hourly variations of DBT and relative humidity (RH). With an increase in GSI, DBT would generally increase, while the RH tends to decrease. However, no such a clear correlation can be found between the DBT and atmospheric pressure (P), and between the DBT and wind speed. These findings will be useful for the research and practice in building performance simulation.