Street Photography Exhibition Review

A couple of weeks ago, I visited the Street Photography exhibition at the Museum of Sydney. The exhibition featured images of Sydney and its inhabitants from the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s along with images of modern-day Sydney by the photographic artist, Anne Zahalka, creating a dialogue between the past and the present, providing much to contemplate and imagine.

Street photographers had to set up a patch, find someone to photograph, hand them a business card with a reference number on it, and convince them to purchase the photo, which could usually be bought the next day at a photographic studio.

They captured images of ordinary people going about their every-day business in the city, usually walking, but sometimes posed, children with their toys, family groups, friends out shopping or going on an outing, business men, romantic couples, soldiers, everyone wearing their best, smiling and striding past shops and buildings that no longer exist, businesses with their neon signs saying Roberts sponges, Saloon Bar, Angus & Robertson, Repin’s café.

These snapshots from last century contrasted with Anne Zahalka’s contemporary images. Her interest in street photography was inspired by photos of her mother taken in Europe and Sydney. Her mother migrated to Australia after World War II, after the loss of her own mother in the Holocaust and the Communist takeover of Prague. A short video screened in the exhibition provided information about Zahalka’s processes and thinking for the exhibition, how she wanted to recapture what had been lost. I was especially moved by the dedication at the end of the video, This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of my mother, Hady Zahalka who made the ‘good decision’ to settle in Sydney.

In order to demonstrate continuity between the past and the present, Zahalka recreated several of the original exhibition shots featuring the descendants of the original subjects posed in the same attitudes and wearing similar clothes. The exhibition also included Zahalka’s contemporary street photographs of current-day Sydney-siders. What is obvious straightaway, is the ethnic diversity of the populace now compared to the past and the casualness of people’s clothes. These photos highlight the connections to the past, how Sydney has changed and what is here now.

I couldn’t help wondering what images would appear in a future exhibition of Sydney street photography. One thing’s certain, people’s hopes and dreams will remain the same.