AustLit

'Photographic archives, filled to the rim with ethnographic images of Indigenous Australians and other colonized peoples, have become the focus of sustained research since the early 1980s and onwards. National and international scholars and curators, including Elizabeth Edwards, Roslyn Poignant, Michael Aird, Nicolas Peterson, Brenda Croft, Gaynor McDonald, and the editor of the volume reviewed here, Jane Lydon, have significantly increased our understanding of colonial photography. Their work has sought to explicate scientific and popular motivations behind picturing Indigenous people, the interdependence between imperialism and photography, and past and present Indigenous approaches to the use of the camera. Lydon has previously published two key contributions to the field of Indigenous Australian photography – a phrase denoting both images taken of and photos created by Aboriginal people. Eye Contact: Photographing Indigenous Australianspresents an enthralling examination of photographic portrayals of Aboriginal residents of Victoria's Coranderrk Aboriginal Station during the mid-19th and early-20th century. Lydon's more recent book, The Flash of Recognition: Photography and the Emergence of Indigenous Rights, explores the ways in which photography has been used by Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians in the struggle for Aboriginal rights.' (Introduction)