South Australia From Above
In the 1960s, Dad (John Atkins) did a heroic job of perfecting colour processing, it really was amazing. It set us apart from many other labs in Australia all because of his attention to detail and ingenuity.
Professional photographers were thirsting for high quality processing services, so Dad met the need and our lab flourished.
All eras have their ‘influencers’, perhaps not the best term these days, but in the truest sense, D Darian Smith was the leading aerial photographer in Australia, and wanted to work with dad for his processing skills.
They struck up a long trusting friendship, and it even drew dad into gaining his pilots liscence, so he could fly for Darian. They worked together for many years and when Darian’s eye sight began to fail, Dad operated the camera for him and eventually purchased Darian’s business. It was more of a gift from Darian as the money exchanged would have brought a nice lunch.
They had an understanding that Dad would safeguard not only the operating reputation, but Darian’s Archive of over 80 years of photography…
This is a big thing. But at the time, it was hard to grasp the importance. There was an odd mistrust of institutions, so the intention was our family business would care for the collection beyond Darian’s life. Darian eventually passed away in the 1980s, and we set about making the best of the collection.
We tried entrepreneurially to raise money by exhibiting the collection and selling prints, but this never produced enough to contribute to anything. We gave access to the collection to whomever asked, and many great books and projects came of it. Notably, Don Loffler’s book series on Holden cars (https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/324425.Don_Loffler) was hugely popular.
Mum, Dad and I worried often about the collection, we have our own 80+ years of photography to manage! Mum moved the collection many times, it required great care with the glass plates and the delicate order of things. We could never settle with a good solution. It was a huge responsibility.
Over the years many people stepped up to help us with the collection, the biggest contributor was Denis Parslow who set about digitising much of the collection using a rudimentory copy process with an early digital camera we devised. We were incredibly grateful for his efforts, he opened a significant portion of the archive.
I felt the weight of it too, I knew Darian as a friendly customer, I was in awe of his experience and skill. When the collection fell into my care in early 2019 as I took over the building and business, it was heavy. I reached out to the Darian Smith family and the State Library and set things in motion to hand it over to South Australia.
Wind back the clock 5 years…
Paul and Sharon (Mascal) Dare approached us in 2015 with the idea of pairing recent photographs of Adelaide with Darian’s work, with the aim of producing a book. As with all projects, we willingly volunteered our time and the collection to make it happen.
Paul Dare had the hard work though as he had to fly the routes in a time where the airspace is much more regulated. Little did we all realise that this was much effort more than could have been imagined.
Fast forward these 8 years, with unexpected challenges like the COVID19 pandemic, and publishing and production hiccups, the book finally took off with a launch in the enchanting Mortlock wing of the State Library of South Australia. We were all there to toast all this great work.
It is a beautiful bow on a box of worry for me. Thanks to Dad and Mum, we got it all safely to where it belongs.
The book is brilliant! It’s for sale at Wakefield Press (https://www.wakefieldpress.com.au/product.php?productid=1879&cat=0&page=&featured=Y). Every history fan will love it.
