1960s Retail Fashion Photography

Brisbane models at work

During 1965, working as assistant to leading Brisbane commercial photographer, Geoff Dauth, I was introduced to fashion photography. Geoff had a great reputation as a fashion photographer, and he taught me all the basics before allowing me to shoot some advertising material. This is the very first fashion picture I ever shot, for newspaper reproduction.

The model on the right is Tammy Hubbard, twin sister of Jill Hubbard. They were Brisbane’s busiest models of the day. A good model could make a lot of money, particularly from retail sale advertising, where they were paid per garment, rather than an hourly rate. A good model was not simply a clothes-horse, they had to be highly photogenic, and creative in their posing, as well as being able to follow direction. Another great attribute was speed in applying makeup and changing outfits.

Normally, all dresses were made to appear as fitting correctly. This was achieved by using lots of bulldog clips on the back side of the outfit

Once Geoff was convinced that I had the right approach to shooting fashion, he set off on a world tour to meet as many well-known photographers as possible; to familiarise himself with their approaches to photography. In England he met the great David Bailey, Terence Donovan, and Brian Duffy. In the U.S.A. he met Irving Penn and Richard Avedon, among many others.

Geoff’s parting comment was “Good luck, it’s all yours!”. I was left with the responsibility of photographing all fashion work for Myer, which kept me exceptionally busy for the following couple of months. Luckily, I had great models to work with, some of the classic ‘60s women such as Aranka Ament, Margaret Boak, Di Kirby, Nancy Cridland, Jarmilla Lloyd, and Annette Arundell. They taught me a lot about the craft.

Unfortunately, I cannot remember the name of the elegant model on the left of the picture above. Perhaps someone who knows her could let me know her name via Comments (below).

Geoff’s studio had a wall with large windows, so most of these types of shots were made in daylight, using big white reflectors to soften shadows, where necessary. The picture was shot on a Linhof Technika with a 120 film back. The film was Ilford’s wonderful HP-3.

N.B. Giclée prints are available of this picture, see Shop