Images of the Australian Male in photography

The idea of the Australian male conjures up many images in people’s minds. The
idea of the down-to-earth, rough as guts, honest, hardworking bloke is prevalent
in most people’s minds today, but this is not true for everyone, nor has the
stereotype been around forever. In fact, conceptions of the ‘Aussie male Ehave developed greatly from the time of our settlement until the present, and
different artists have expressed these in many different ways in different eras
and movements.



Soon after Australia was colonised, the British wanted to be able to see this
new land through the use of photography. In this era, photography was used for
purposes of documentation, often in a scientific context. However, in this era
there was a prevalent mentality to the use of photography, now known as
Colonialism, that rather than taking candid photographs or documenting an actual
event or occurrence, artists would set up image...