South Australian photographers

Many people mistakenly think that the photography process has been around for a very long time. This is of course untrue and indeed the pictures in your 19th century album are unlikely to predate the 1860s. Photography was very expensive and largely restricted to studio portraits in the early days. The advent of the Brownie camera and celluloid film in the 1890s was the dawn of home snap shots and unfortunately the end of the attributes in photographs that allow quite accurate dating of your collection.

When dating photographs there are a number of points to consider:
1. The type of photograph.
2. The mount.
3. The information on the reverse of the photograph.
4. The pose and costume of the people depicted.
5. The furnishings, foreground and background depicted in the photograph.

The reverse of photographs often contain details about the photographer and by matching the address against commercial directories we can often get a fairly precise date. Photographers in the main street usually rented premises and jockeyed for the best spots and this means they often changed address.

The following searchable database can aid your research.