Jeff Carter (photographer)

Jeff Carter (born 1928) is an Australian photographer.

Carter was born in August 1928 in Victoria and attended Melbourne Boys’ School. He began taking photographs whilst still at high school.

In 1946, Carter set off to travel around Australia with his camera and typewriter and made a living selling his stories and photographs to a wide range of Australian and international newspapers and magazines including Paris Match, People, Pix, Walkabout and Australian Women's Weekly. He was later also commissioned by National Geographic.

From 1949-54 became was editor of "Outdoors and Fishing" magazine; he then resigned to travel in rural and outback Australia as a freelance photo-journalist. He wrote and illustrated seventeen books based on his experiences. [ [http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=Jeff+Carter&fq=ln%3Aeng+%3E+ap%3A%22carter%2C+jeff%22&qt=facet_ap%3A WorldCat] ] His most widely held book outside Australia is"People of the Inland". [Adelaide] : Rigby, 1966. OCLC 901968 .

With Mare Carter (born USA, arr. Australia 1950, author) he settled in 1962 on a 45 hectare farm at Foxground in NSW near the south coast, where their two sons were born.

From 1972-74, he filmed, wrote and produced the television series "Wild Country" for the Seven Network, which was shown internationally including the annual television festival MIP in Cannes, France. An episode won awards for Best Documentary, Best Director and Best Editing at the 1974 Australian Film Awards, an episode won several awards at the annual television festival MIP in Cannes, France. From 1981-85 he was head teacher of photography at the Wollongong campus of the National Art School.

His photographs are in the collections of the Art Gallery of NSW, the Victorian National Gallery, The National Gallery of Australia, the National Library of Australia (over 450 photographs) , the Art Gallery of South Australia, the Australian National Museum, the Powerhouse Museum. They have been exhibited at the National Library of Australia, the National Art Gallery of Australia, the National Museum of Australia, the Art Gallery of NSW, the Art Gallery of South Australia and overseas galleries in Osaka, Japan, Lisbon, Portugal, New York and Paris.

The Monash Gallery of Art in Melbourne held a major retrospective exhibition of his images in May-June of 2003, seen by a record number of over 9,000 visitors. Part of this exhibition was then shown at the Christine Abrahams Gallery, and the National Trust Gallery in Melbourne.

Carter received the Australia Council’s Visual Arts/Craft Board 2004 Emeritus award. The National Library compendium of its image collection uses Carter’s iconic image “Tobacco Road” for the cover illustration. A collection of his black and white studies was published as "Jeff Carter: Retrospective." Sydney: New Holland, 2005, ISBN 9781741102130

As a photographer, Carter concentrates on the unglamorous and unprivileged aspects of Australia: the working lives and conditions of ordinary Australians. During his early travels his as an itinerant bush worker, fruit picker, side show ‘urger’ for a travelling boxing troupe, drover and road worker, brought him in contact with the people who would be the subjects of his photographs. These early years of his career filled him with admiration for those making their livings in some of the toughest environments in Australia.

Throughout his career, Carter has produced series that show the progression of events over time. Concentrating on rituals and process, they comprise evocative images.

References

*Helen Ennis, Intersections: Photography, History and the National Library of Australia, National Library of Australia, Canberra 2004
*Helen Ennis, Made in Australia:Contemporary Documentary Photography, NLA News, December 2004 Volume XV Number 3

External links

*Pictures Collection, National Library of Australia, Canberra: [http://nla.gov.au/apps/picturescatalogue Enter Jeff Carter as search terms]