Search / selina snow

Embrace your inner nerd

The southern winter has arrived. For people in the northern hemisphere (the majority of humanity) the idea of snow and ice, freezing mist and fog in June, potentially continuing through to August and beyond, encapsulates the topsy-turvidom of our southern continent.

Time and light

This sample of 56 photographs takes in some of the smallest photographs we own and some of the largest, some of the earliest and some of the most recent, as well as multiple photographic processes from daguerreotypes to digital media.

Giving a dam

Ensconced and meditative in crisp Tasmania, Joanna Gilmour pays tribute to passionate green advocate and photographer Olegas Truchanas.

Alwar Balasubramaniam

Born in 1971 in Tamil Nadu, Southern India, Alwar Balasubramaniam's sculptures, prints and installations challenge our perceptions while creating forms for the invisible and the intangible.

Man of war

Tedi Bills talks to George Gittoes about canvassing conflict.

Dempsey's people

Those of you who are active in social media circles may be aware that through the past week I have unleashed a blitz on Facebook and Instagram in connection with our new winter exhibition Dempsey’s People: A Folio of British Street Portraits, 1824−1844.

Portrait Donors

Northern exposure

Phil Manning celebrates a century of Brisbane photographic portraiture.

Written in Water

Olegas Truchanas and Peter Dombrovskis, photographers and conservationists, shared a love of photography and exploring wilderness areas of Tasmania.

The existential lens

Stephen Zagala discusses Richard Avedon’s work from an Australian perspective.

Moving still

Anne O’Hehir on the seductive power of the film still to reflect and shape ourselves and our cultural landscape.

Flash mob

Sarah Engledow trains her exacting lens on the nine photographs from 20/20.

20/20 launch speech

Dr Helen Nugent AO, Chairman, National Portrait Gallery at the opening of 20/20: Celebrating twenty years with twenty new portrait commissions.

Lucy Culliton

Most well-regarded pictures of chickens show them dead. A reliable way to tell if a chicken in a painting is dead is to check if it’s hanging upside down, because unlike, say, cockatoos, chickens don’t practise inversion for enjoyment in life.

A feast of friends

John Singer Sargent: a painter at the vanguard of contemporary movements in music, literature and theatre.