Ticket collector, Horse Punt
Photographer
Harold Cazneaux
(Australian, 1878 - 1953)
Datec 1908
Object number00054627
NamePhotograph
MediumGelatin silver photograph, chloro-bromide cool tone matt print
DimensionsOverall: 202 × 252 mm
Display dimensions: 435 × 590 mm
Display dimensions: 435 × 590 mm
ClassificationsPhotographs
Credit LineANMM Collection Donated through the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts Program by Anne Christoffersen, in memory of the artist
DescriptionPhotograph titled 'Ticket collector, Horse Punt' by Harold Cazneaux.
HistoryCazneaux moved to Sydney in 1904 and obtaining his own camera started taking photographs around Sydney in a Pictorial style stressing atmosphere and also nostalgia for the old Sydney world of the Rocks and local manual workers and residents. A parallel focus on Old Sydney was a feature of print makers at the turn of the century.
From his arrival in Sydney Cazneaux was struck by the contrasts of old and new in the ‘big smoke’ of Sydney especially the harbourside shipping but treated these as atmospheric romantic images in a style well established by late Victorian era printmakers and painters. He was commissioned to photograph BHP plants in NSW and South Australian for the Company’s 1935 Jubilee. The industrial images combined both pictorialist atmosphere with the drama and scale of modernist celebrations of the machine age.
This wharf was built at Dawes Point Sydney in 1831 and operated for a century. It was serviced by five ferries, or punts, which went to Blues Point. There was one other Harbour crossing operating from Bennelong Point (Fort Macquarie) to Milsons Point, constructed in 1883.SignificanceThis view of the vehicular horse ferry is an early Sydney work by leading pictorialist photographer Harold Cazneaux photographed in 1908 and demonstrates the importance of ferries for Harbour transport before the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. his view by noted Australian pictorialist photographer Harold Cazneaux puts the ticket collector front and centre, shows the ferry in the background and represents Cazneaux's interest in capturing old Sydney, its life and landscapes.
