Out of the Shadows: On Light,Darkness and Race in Australian Photography

Photographs of and by indigenous people in colonial countries have received considerable scholarly attention since the 1980s, but the role of colonisation in shaping the meaning of photography has been widely neglected. This article addresses this lacuna by focusing on metaphors of light, darkness and race, through which photography was made meaningful in colonial Australia. Representations of Aboriginality in photographs and in cartoons addressing photography are analysed to reveal how colonialist assumptions about race, light and darkness inform conceptions of Australian photography as process, brand and movement.