The Opera House and Max Dupain

Two of the things I love to do is build, and admire great photography. Max Dupain was born in Ashfield, Sydney in 1911, and started taking photos at the age of 13. He became one of Australia's most admired photographers.

Not knowing a lot about his life and "what made him tick", I went looking for information to see if my own thoughts about his photography matched his philosophy. My introduction to Max Dupain (like most) was seeing his photograph "Sunbaker", likely some time in the 80's on the front of a coffee table book my mum had. He took that photo in his 20's at Culburra Beach NSW, and it became famous over 30 years later !

He wanted authentic, genuine and "un-staged" photographs. Photographs of people or objects in their most natural state. The thing I like most about his art is the contrast of light and darkness. This is authentic in itself, because our eyes tend to pick up contrast so much more than a camera does.

He loved architectural photography, and was good friends with Chris Vandyke and Harry Seidler. After some "Googling", I found some of his amazing photographs of the Opera House on the State Library of NSW website.

One of the best photographers in history, taking photos of the construction of one of the most iconic buildings in the world? Amazing.

https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/80.1984/