Curio

State Library of New South Wales
Panorama of Blue Mountains scenery at Leura

Panorama of Blue Mountains scenery at Leura

November 1903
DL Pg 27
Platinum photoprint

American adventurer, singer, aeronaut, and photographer Melvin (Chester) Vaniman (1866-1912) had a passion for taking panoramic photographs from great heights. If he could not find something tall from which to take a photograph, he would erect his own thirty metre pole. ‘The acrobatic photographer’ arrived in Sydney in February 1903 after being commissioned by the Pacific cruise line Oceanic Steamship Company to take promotional photos of Australia and New Zealand.

During his time in Australia, Vaniman travelled extensively throughout the country to fulfil his commission and personal creative pursuits. The expansive landscapes, blue skies and rugged bushlands provided the perfect setting for Vaniman’s unconventional, panoramic photographic practices.

Panorama of Blue Mountains scenery at Leura was a photograph captured at Vaniman’s favourite view-point in Australia. The image is a classic example of how the eccentric photographer captured light and the natural beauty of Australia’s mountainous landscapes.

Other exponents of platinum photographic prints include photographers F Holland Day, Irving Penn, Edward Steichen and Alfred Stieglitz.

Melvin Vaniman decided to try photography as a profession in Hawaii in 1901. Vaniman's unusual panoramas caught the eye of the Oceanic Steamship Company, which commissioned him to photograph places visited by their vessels in New Zealand and Australia, as an incentive for tourists.

21 black and white platinum prints which Melvin Vaniman took on his travels throughout NSW, Queensland and Victoria between 1903 and 1904 featured in the exhibition A different perspective: Vaniman, the acrobatic photographer

Alan Davies and Alan Tierney, State Library of New South Wales, 2001

Melvin Vaniman knew that Australia's clear light was a bonus to photographers, and had even commented on it in an interview just before he left Sydney: 'You have a splendid light ... and beautiful clouds: no question about that. Especially up country the atmosphere is beautifully clear, and in Bathurst I got one of the most beautiful skies I have ever met'.