1839 The invention of the positive/negative by Henry Fox Talbot in Britain and the silver plate direct positive process by Lois Daguerre in France.(Announced by Arago to Academie des Sciences, Paris).
1839 The French Government , on August 19 of 1839 donates Daguerre's invention to the world. A specialist study of the daguerreotype patent is available via Derek WoodÕs 'The daguerreotype patent, the British Government and the Society' in History and Photography 4 No. 2. (January 1980) pp 53- 59.
1840 Hippolite Bayard is on record for having taken the worlds first protest photograph, a self portrait as a drowning man , intended to demonstrate his demise a consequence of Daguerre's rival invention.
1840 Petzval lens constructed by Voigtlaender, reduces exposure time by more than 90%.
1840 Australia's population numbers 267 000.
1841 The first recorded photograph is taken in Australia by a visiting Sea Captain Lucas in Sydney.
1842 George Baron Goodman opens the first commercial photography studio in Australia.
1846 Samuel Thomas Gill imports Daguerreotype equipment and becomes the first professional photographer in South Australia. He tires of photography fairly quickly and sells his equipment to Robert Hall who in turn moves to Perth where he makes the first photographic records.
1847 Photographic club founded in London.; negative on albumenised glass developed by Niépce de Saint-Victor.
1851 (ca.) The Wet Collodion glass plate negative process is invented by Frederic Scott Archer a process in use until the 1880s.
1854 Disdéri, a French businessman patents his invention the Carte de Visite.
1858 Union picture for 8 hours work, 8 hours recreation and 8 hours rest.
1860 First formal Photographic Society is formed in Melbourne.
1860s Charles Pickering works as photographer for the Lands Department. 1870 The Copyright Act comes into effect in Victoria. Works of Art could be registered for a fee at Melbourne Town Hall. Photographers were quick to register their images. Upon his arrival in Melbourne for example , Nicholas Caire made immediate and continued use of the facility. Between 1876 and 1905 he registered 734 of his images.
1870s Awareness that the Aborigines are becoming an endangered species (see Merlin Holterman Collection ). Henry King made extensive photographic studies which ranged from direct records of physiognomy to gentle images of mothers with their children . He can be described as the Australian equivalent to Curtis in the U.S.
1870s Captain Sweet produced an album entitled : Views, Northern Territory, Bridges etc. (the album is held in the South Australian State Library Collection). refer also Photofile Spring 1986 pp.9-11.
1870s Systematic 'mug' shots are routinely made in New South Wales and Tasmania using the Carte de visite technology (see The Mechanical eye in Australia page 201).
1871 The gelatin silver halite emulsion technique is developed by Richard Leach Maddox. This process, although greatly improved over the years, is still in use today as standard emulsion technology.
1870s Thomas Baker and J.F.C. Faarquhar combine as associates.
1871 There were 1330 Aborigines left in Victoria and the white settlement had grown to approx. 750 000.
1872 Richard Daintree publishes in collaboration with Antoine Fauchery a number of photographic albums entitled Australia.
1872 Richard Daintree is appointed agent general in London and uses photography extensively to publicize and promote Queensland. ( see R. Daintree Queensland, Australia. A guide to prospective immigrants).
1872-1873 Captain Samuel Sweet documented the link-up of the first Australian-British telegraphic cable in Darwin.
1877 Nicholas Caire publishes his The Public Buildings of Melbourne and Suburbs . This sequential series of 40 images was published as a portfolio. 1878 Bernard Otto Holtermann and Charles Bayliss expose the largest wet - plate negatives on record (one 97 x 160 cm and another 97 x 122 cm) to add to their already huge 33 foot (10 meter) panorama of Sydney Harbour which formed part of the Silver Medal winning display at the 'Paris Exposition Universelle Internationale de 1878'.
1880 J.W.Lindt photographs the body of Joe Byrne , a member of the Kelly gang , hung up at Seymour for public display.
1883 Bernard Otto Holterman, a member of the New South Wales Legislative Assembly proposes that the government spend 2000 pounds to procure photographs of Sydney and the important public buildings and public works throughout New South Wales and to distribute these amongst the Mechanics Institutes and art galleries of Europe 'with a view of thereby exciting the attention of the most desirable class of immigrants and others to the advantages offered for the introduction of skilled labor into this country'. He quoted specific examples of skilled immigrants who had come to Australia as a result of seeing his photographic displays in Europe. The New South Wales Government greeted this idea with scepticism and mockery.
1880s It was not until the mid 1880s , when the dry-plate process was developed that the photographic process became less exact. Now the negative no longer had to be wet when exposed and developed and could therefore be mass produced and processed in factories.
1886 Bray and Lichtner publish the first Australian photographic magazine, the: Australian photographic journal which survives 9 issues.
1888 The first Australian use of photographic reproductions in newspapers by the Sydney Mail (a weekly).
1890 The first photographs are entered in the collections of the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Amongst them are topographical scenes by Nicholas Caire . These pictures were later transferred to the department of lands along with reproductions of famous paintings, casts of antique sculpture and other 'impure works' of art.
1892 Harringtons, a Sydney based company publish the Harringtons magazine which then becomes the Harringtons Photographic journal in 1910.
1894 Baker and Rouse follow Harrington's lead and publish the British Photographic review of reviews under the title Australasian Photo-Review. This publication was continued by Kodak after it's take-over of Baker and Rouse until 1957.
1895 The beginning of Australia's first postcard boom.
1895 Eastman introduce the Kodak pocket camera to the world.
1895 The first prismatic tri-colour camera becomes commercially available from Camille Nachet, France.
1896 3000 Kodak pocket camera's are sold during the first 3 months (October to December) of the camera's release in Australia.
1901 Department of public works, Sydney,records the bubonic plague. John Degartanny photographs Sydney,the rat catchers.
1905 The Swiss-born photographer and photo-engraver James Aebi of the working mans college (later R.M.I.T.) produces the first Australian made natural colour photographic prints in February 1905. Aebi was running classes in three colour printing at the college .
1906 Harold Chazneaux prints Billy Meditation.
1907 Underwood and Underwood, New York, send a Mr. Rickolton (Photographer) to record Australia for one year.The result were stereoscopic views of various aspects of Australia.
1915 Kodak began printing private or family snapshots onto postcards.
1917 Frank Hurley produces The morning after the first battle at Passendaele (October 12).
1920s The Art Gallery of South Australia acquires the first photographs as works of Art. It was the first Australian museum to do so.
1924 Frank Hurley publishes Pearls and savages.
1927 The last issue of the Harringtons Photographic journal, first published in 1910.
1929 As a consequence of the 'Black Thursday' stock-market collapse on October 24, Australia enters it's 'Great Depression' years.
1932 The height of the depression years (nearly one third of the work-force was unemployed).
1933 The first miniature colour slide film is released by Agfa (Agfacolour)
1935 Art in Australia publishes a portfolio of Max Dupain's work (editor was Ure Smith)
1939 Laurence Le Guay's produces his War poster
1946 Max Dupain photographs Meat queue.
1947 Jack Cato publishes 'I can take it' . The autobiography of a photographer
1949 David Moore photographs Redfern interior.
1951 Discovery of the Holterman collection of wet - plate negatives from the 1870s.
1954 Max Dupain in Sydney and Athol Shmith in Melbourne form breakaway groups from the Institute of photographic illustrators. By the mid- fifties photographers committed to the documentary idea were treated with indifference by the professional photographic establishment.
1955 Edward Steichen mounts the Family of Man exhibition which tours the world. David Moore's Redfern Interior was the only Australian scene by an Australian photographer that was included in this exhibition.(This Photograph presented Australia to the world).The Redfern ÔbabyÕ was already 6 years old at this point.
1955 Jack Cato publishes The Story of the Camera in Australia.
1958 Athol Shmith and Mark Strizic show Melbournes Twelve Best Buildings at the National Gallery of Victoria.
1963 The first Cibachrome process becomes available in Australia after itÕs European introduction in 1962.
1963 The introduction of the first instant colour-film by Polaroid.
1967 Aborigines get the vote for the first time.
1968 The first resin coated Black and White photographic papers (Kodak) become commercially available .
1968 Through the effects of John Cato , Athol Shmith and Mark Strizic a department of photography is established at the national Gallery of Victoria with Jennie Boddington as it's first curator.
1971 Jack Cato dies, aged 82.
1972 Peter Gabriell's Photographer's gallery opens in Sydney.
1972 The National Gallery of Victoria commences photography exhibitions on a permanent basis.
1972 Rennie Ellis establishes the Pentax Brummel's Gallery in South Yarra.
1974 Paul Cox, John Williams Rod McNichol and Ingeborg Tysson found the Photographers Gallery and Workshop in South Yarra 1974 The Australian Centre for Photography opens in Sydney.
1975 John Szarkowsky tours the Australian Centre for Photography and various country centre's.
1975 Ian Lobb and Bill Heimerman take over the running of the Photographers Gallery and Workshop in South Yarra.
1977 Joyce Evans establishes ÔChurch Street Photographic GalleryÕ in Richmond, Melbourne. The first exhibition (November 16 -Dec. 4) is the work of Mark Strizic.
1977 Jean Mark Le Pechoux starts to publish Light Vision a magazine dedicated to art photography . It survives only for 8 issues.
1977 Ralph Gibson is shown and holds a workshop at the Photographers Gallery in Melbourne. The gallery is at this stage under the control of Ian Lobb and Bill Heimerman.
1977 An Australian photography conference is held in September at the Department of adult education at the University of Sydney. Matthew Nickson and Euan Mc Gillivray become the joint editors of the document published under the title Working papers on photography or WOPOP which contains the working papers of the conference participants.
1978 Jenny Boddington curates a group show on 'series' entitled Six Series at the National Gallery of Victoria (11 th. August 1 st. October) together with Virginia Coventry, Ed Douglas,Richard Harris, Lynn Silvermann, Ingeborg Tyssen and John Williams.
1977 -1981 Virginia Coventry produces Whyalla - not a document.
1979 A major exhibition of Australian pictorial photography 1898 - 1938 is mounted and tours Melbourne , Sydney and Adelaide.
1980 Kenneth Coutts- Smith Associated Professor of Art History at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, was invited to deliver the Power lecture 1980 at the University of Melbourne. He speaks on the political art (photography) of Klaes Staek .
1981 Exhibition of Australian woman photographers 1950- 1980 is shown at the George Paton Gallery , University of Melbourne. The show features the work of 27 woman photographers of this period.
1983 Twenty - four photographers are selected to each produce 20 photographs as their individual response to the construction of the new Parliament house in Canberra between the years 1983 and 1985.
1985 The inauguration of the Museum of Victoria's Outreach project by Euan McGillivray and Matthew Nickson.The aim of the project is to compile a national archive of Australian documentary photographs up to 1939 (the centenary of the announcement of Daguerre's invention)
1987 Four Australian Woman Fiona Hall, Anne Zahalka, Robyn Stacey and Jackie Redgate show their highly manipulated images in Tokyo in an exhibition entitled Pure Invention.
1988 The Australian National Gallery displays Shades of light: Photography and Australia 1839-1988 between February 20 and May 22. Gael Newton is guest curator and writer of the extensive catalogue.
1988 The Joyce Agee curated exhibition The Thousand Mile Stare opens at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art in Melbourne between March 10 and April 10 1988. It goes on to tour nationally in 1988 and 1989. The catalogue for this exhibition is edited by David Bennett.
1988 The Australian National Gallery displays the Kodak sponsored exhibition Australian Photography:The 1980s.