We may never have seen Alfred Elliot’s poignant photos of bygone Brisbane if someone had thrown out the old boxes found under a house in Red Hill. Luckily, for all of us, some care was taken and the cigar boxes discovered there contained buried treasure.

New Light: Photography Now + Then, the latest exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane (MoB), draws on its most prolific historic archive, the Elliott Collection, juxtaposed with fresh takes from contemporary local image-makers. The good news is that it is on until next year and admission is free.

The Elliott Collection collates the work of amateur photographer Alfred Henrie Elliott (1870-1954), whose black-and-white imagery capturing a bygone era of Brisbane lay dormant for decades until the discovery of those cigar boxes in 1983. Donated to the City of Brisbane Collection, these photographs are one of the most significant collections of historical images of Brisbane.

And they are quite natural, often personal and poignant.

A wonderful photo of Elliott’s daughter Dorothy’s birthday party in 1911, reproduced here on quite a large scale, is both moving and a tad haunting. That’s the thing about historical photographs … they are a bit ghostly. Here we see the faces of people who are now mere memories, if that, and they appear to be looking at us. One wonders what they were thinking and what their lives were like.

And we wonder about Elliott who remains, to a degree, a mystery man. Although little is known about him, the large number of images contained in the Elliott Collection, combined with their annotations, provide clues about the personality and life of this photographer.

We do know that Elliott was born in Paignton, Devon, England, in 1870 and emigrated to Brisbane with his family in 1876. He worked as a civil servant and began his photography hobby in the 1890s.

When Elliott started photographing Brisbane the city was on the verge of rapid population growth while experiencing major advances in technology, significant global events and social change. Like most amateur photographers, Elliott directed his camera according to his interests.

The images produced convey a carefully composed view of one person’s life in, around and of Brisbane over a period of 50 years between 1890 and 1940. And that makes it more interesting than if it was the work of a professional photographer.

New Light: Photography Now + Then includes stills, camera equipment and original film and glass-plate negatives from the late 19th century to the 21st century. Newly commissioned artworks have been created by seven Brisbane visual creatives who have reframed Elliott’s singular gaze to realise fresh perspectives and new takes on this historical collection.

The new compositions by Marian Drew, Jo-Anne Driessens, Joachim Froese, Tammy Law, Carl Warner, Nina White and Keemon Williams add scope, texture and depth to the historic black-and-white photography, exploring notions of time, place, fragility and memory.

Exhibition curator Elena Dias-Jayasinha says the exhibition offers an exciting opportunity to re-examine one of MoB’s most significant historic photography archives through the lens of local visionaries.

“Seven contemporary photographers personally connected to Brisbane have been commissioned to create new works responding to the incredible source material that is the Elliott Collection, while also reflecting on the biases and ambiguities found within the archive,” Dias-Jayasinha says.

“By layering their own perspectives, knowledge and experiences onto the collection, the artists will encourage new ways of looking at our past, our present and this place.”

In addition to the archival Elliott Collection and new commissioned works, MoB is also displaying an array of black-and-white photographic submissions sourced from the public during a community callout earlier this year, further shaping the storytelling perspectives.

This sort of community engagement is something MoB does well. Its CEO and director Zoe Graham hopes locals will embrace this rare portal into the city’s past while participating in a collective creative journey.

“At the heart of New Light: Photography Now + Then lies a dynamic conversation between the past and present where historic photographs and contemporary responses intertwine to tell powerful stories,” Graham says. “This exhibition not only honours our rich heritage but also invites the community to contribute their own narratives, creating a vibrant tapestry of shared experiences.”

The seven contemporary photographers featured were commissioned to unpick the nuance and bias found within the Elliott Collection and the narrative it presents. Driessens and Law search for gaps and silences in the archive, exploring parallel histories and reflecting on their own lived experiences. Warner considers the composition of Elliott’s landscapes, while Froese disrupts the hierarchy of his portraits.

Drew and White emphasise the subjectivity of the archive, encouraging us to think more deeply about how we read a photograph. Meanwhile, Williams uses Elliott’s images as a primed canvas for his futuristic imaginings.

Froese has created a new version of the aforementioned photograph Elliott took of his daughter Dorothy’s birthday party. In the original photo, Dorothy sits at the edge of a group while her brother is in the centre. Froese uploaded everyone’s faces onto smartphones and a tablet and rearranged the group. In his version, Dorothy is in the centre.

This, to me, is the most compelling image in the exhibition, a window into a lost world that is, for a time, found again.

New Light: Photography Now + Then continues at the Museum of Brisbane, Brisbane City Hall, until July 2025. Free admission.

museumofbrisbane.com.au

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