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.