Decade: 1970-1980 is a photography book showcasing Rennie Ellis' (1940-2003) contribution to photography and social history. The photographs in the book are edited by multi-award winning photographer, Stephen Dupont and are introduced by Susan van Wyk, Senior Curator of Photography at the NGV, and Ellis' contemporary, award-winning filmmaker and photographer, Paul Cox. Decade highlights Ellis as one of Australia's most important chroniclers of the seventies. The photographs, predominantly black and white, are drawn from a core selection originally made by Rennie for his own unpublished book, and are supplemented by other significant and iconic images from the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive and the State Library of Victoria's collection. Many of the photographs are accompanied by extended captions written by Rennie Ellis and are published here for the first time. Decade, published in association with the State Library of Victoria, explores the cultures and sub-cultures of the seventies: the political upheavals, alternative lifestyles and counter culture, the women's movement, gay liberation, the new religions and cults, pop festivals, Vietnam and other protests, massage parlours, the disco scene, the blossoming of Australia's film industry, the new sexual freedom, Aboriginal rights, street festivals, the new theatre, fashion, drugs and the emergence of a decadent and hedonistic society that would come to characterise the eighties.
Decade: 1970-1980 is a photography book showcasing Rennie Ellis' (1940-2003) contribution to photography and social history. The photographs in the book are edited by multi-award winning photographer, Stephen Dupont and are introduced by Susan van Wyk, Senior Curator of Photography at the NGV, and Ellis' contemporary, award-winning filmmaker and photographer, Paul Cox. Decade highlights Ellis as one of Australia's most important chroniclers of the seventies. The photographs, predominantly black and white, are drawn from a core selection originally made by Rennie for his own unpublished book, and are supplemented by other significant and iconic images from the Rennie Ellis Photographic Archive and the State Library of Victoria's collection. Many of the photographs are accompanied by extended captions written by Rennie Ellis and are published here for the first time. Decade, published in association with the State Library of Victoria, explores the cultures and sub-cultures of the seventies: the political upheavals, alternative lifestyles and counter culture, the women's movement, gay liberation, the new religions and cults, pop festivals, Vietnam and other protests, massage parlours, the disco scene, the blossoming of Australia's film industry, the new sexual freedom, Aboriginal rights, street festivals, the new theatre, fashion, drugs and the emergence of a decadent and hedonistic society that would come to characterise the eighties.
No other photographer has documented - in such depth - the life and times in Australia, throughout the 1970s until his death in 2003, with such insight into the human condition as Rennie Ellis. His non-judgmental approach was his 'access-to-all-areas' pass. Ellis used his camera as a key to open the doors to the social arenas of the rich and famous and to enter the underbelly of the nightclubs, bearing witness to the indulgences and excesses. In today's post-Henson era, these captured moments offer an intimate access to an Australia tantalisingly, but sadly, now almost out of reach.
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