Take a look at yourself
What does the city of Sydney and its citizens look like today?
To coincide with the (past) Street Photography exhibition, we revived this forgotten genre of photography with a street activation across several locations in Sydney’s CBD. Photographers Roslyn Sharp and Tawfik Elgazzar, under the creative direction of photo-media artist Anne Zahalka, revisited places identified in the historical street photographs and reframed patterns and movements with modern subjects, capturing people out and about in the city today.
This gallery of faces reveals just how much we have changed – or have we?
Photographer/artist profile links
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Anna Cossu
Curator
Inspired by wonderful history teachers and after her own foray as a high school teacher, Anna found herself drawn to the world of museums and heritage interpretation. In a 20-year career she has worked across a diverse field including visitor interpretation, education, and curatorial. Her great passion is people and their stories and how museums can best craft an experience that reveals something intrinsic and true of those lives and communities.
Street photography
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Ikon Studio: photo galleries
Browse a selection of images from the Ikon Studio collection shot between May and December 1950 in Martin Place, Sydney
City of a million faces
The passing of years has given many street photographs greater significance than may have been anticipated when they were taken
Ikon Studio
During the public call out for our Street Photography exhibition an extraordinarily rare collection of street photography negatives came to light. The Ikon Studio negatives provide a fascinating visual narrative of the street photographer at work
Vali Myers: teenage Ikon in street photograph
Two young women stride confidently, hand in hand, up Sydney’s Martin Place on a sunny winter’s day in 1950
The street snapshot craze
Picture this: you and a friend are walking down a city footpath amid the lunchtime crowd. Suddenly a smiling man in a suit and tie with camera in hand steps forward and offers you a card. It reads: Your photograph has just been taken
Matching snapshots
The names and stories behind street photographs are often lost with the passing of time, and we were unable to identify many of the people whose images are featured in the Street Photography exhibition. However, we’ve since learnt the moving story behind one image, of two curly-haired children
Family photo reunion
Imagine visiting an exhibition and discovering a photograph of yourself and your family that you had never seen before
Snapped! The Ikon Studio street photographer at work
A remarkable acquisition of 5000 street snaps provides a lively and revealing record of one Sydney street in 1950 and offers a rare glimpse through the street photographer’s lens
A popular nuisance – controlling the street photographers
By the mid-1930s the street photography ‘craze’ saw increasing numbers of photographers on Sydney’s streets – all competing for the best locations and the most promising marks
Signs of the times
In the background of many street photos are glimpses of Sydney’s architecture, from still-recognisable locations to popular landmarks of the day