Richard Strangman’s stunning photographs record the growth and development of Canberra and the region over a period of more than 30 years. Moving to Canberra shortly after the opening of this building in 1927, Strangman quickly established himself as one of Canberra’s leading commercial photographers.
He specialised in the photography of buildings, monuments and landscapes and his work provides an important visual account of the emergence of the ‘bush capital’. Strangman’s photographs were circulated throughout Australia in a variety of forms in addition to photographic prints. His work also appeared on postcards, greeting cards and souvenir china, in tourism publications and even on menus for important parliamentary banquets and functions.
As the most prominent building within the Canberra landscape, Old Parliament House featured strongly in Strangman’s work. In particular, Strangman delighted in photographing the gardens surrounding Old Parliament House.
‘I use an old Thornton Pickard half inch plate camera with two or three (I’m sorry to say) very poor lenses… To ensure a sharp clear result the lens is stopped well down, usually F45. Ilford S.R Pan. plates are almost always used, and a Wratten K2 filter or similar filter is necessary to make the sky dark so that the clouds will show…’
Strangman’s arrival in Canberra coincided with the onset of the Great Depression in the late 1920s, which delayed development of the gardens around the new Parliament. Until the 1930s, when the Secretary of the Joint House Department, Robert Broinowski, undertook to complete the gardens, the wind-swept limestone plains around Old Parliament House featured only immature cypress hedges.
Strangman’s photographs reveal the transformation of this landscape into magnificent gardens carefully designed to complement the architecture of Old Parliament House and to provide spaces for rest and recreation.
Photograph of Old Parliament House and gardens by Richard Strangman. Image reproduced courtesy of the National Library of Australia.