Discover our new photography exhibition: Shot

Shot: 400 photographs, 200 photographers, 3 centuries is the first exhibition to comprehensively review the Library’s photo collections — one of the largest, most diverse, and significant in Australia. This tour will take a closer look at the works of Australian photographers, from the first commercial photographer through to present-day practitioners. With a representative image from almost every year between 1845 and 2022, this tour presents visitors with a fascinating new take on Australia’s past.

This tour will meet in the Photography Gallery (Lower Ground Floor, Mitchell Building).

On March 27, please join us after the tour to hear from photographer John Janson-Moore in the latest in our Through my lens series, 6pm in the Metcalfe Auditorium.

Geoff Barker is a Senior Curator at the State Library of New South Wales. He studied at Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand, before coming to Australia in 1987. Geoff has worked as a curator with the Macleay Museum collections, at the Chau Chak Wing Museum, and at the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences. He specialises in the history of photography from Australia and Oceania and is an enthusiastic supporter of open-source projects. Currently he is Chair of the Library’s Wikimedia Working Group.