Black, White + Colour

In this latest episode of Biographers in Conversation, Tim Dobbyn chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about Black, White + Colour: A Biography of Mervyn Bishop Australia's First Indigenous Professional Photographer Here’s what you’ll discover in this episode:

Mervyn Bishop joined the Sydney Morning Herald at 17, becoming Australia’s first Indigenous press photographer and, soon after, the first Indigenous journalist on a metropolitan daily newspaper. Tim Dobbyn’s family has known Mervyn since 1962; their friendship deepened over decades before evolving into a nine-year biography project, completed largely during pandemic lockdowns. Dobbyn discusses the unusual position of writing about a living, close friend, using journalistic standards, corroborating witnesses and news archives to keep the account truthful rather than reverential. Mervyn’s mother, Marjorie, was a talented amateur photographer whose influence sparked his early interest, reflecting a broader, lesser-known tradition of photography within First Nations families as a way of preserving connection. The death of Mervyn’s wife Elizabeth on the day of his first solo exhibition profoundly altered Mervyn’s life and parenting, with Dobbyn noting she had been his crucial organising force. Mervyn developed a distinctive ethical practice around photographing people in dire circumstances, using humour, empathy and consent to disarm subjects rather than exploit them. Dobbyn faced years of publishing rejection as a first-time author before Ginninderra Press took on the richly illustrated book, timed serendipitously with a State Library exhibition of Mervyn’s photographs.