Title / object name Ballarat Street, Queenstown, NZ, flooded 1878
| Maker | Role | Date |
| Hart, William P. | photographer | 1878 |
| Hart, Campbell & Co | photography studio | 1878 |
Medium Summary black and white collodion glass negative
Materials collodion, sheet glass, silver, photographic plates
Format whole plate (1/1)
Classification wet collodion negatives, documentary photographs, black-and-white negatives
Technique black-and-white photography, wet collodion process
Registration Number C.014174
Credit LinePurchased 1943
Long before photographs were used in newspapers, William Hart took this picture of Queenstown in flood. Like so many news images of later times, it draws on the extraordinary spectacle of people boating in an urban street – and in this case, even the possibility that a ship might be about to literally steam into town. Photography was still a relative novelty, so the townsfolk were out in force to be recorded for posterity. Their presence reinforces the sense in which photography can be both witness and performance.
Also see this work in the Google Art Project
