Voice from the Heart Alliance is thrilled to have Uncle Mervyn Bishop and Dean Saffron join us on the 26th.

Uncle Mervyn Bishop

Mervyn Bishop is one of Australia’s most important photographers and a pioneering figure in Australian photojournalism. As Australia’s first Aboriginal press photographer, his career has helped change not only who was photographed in this country, but who stood behind the camera telling those stories.

Born in Brewarrina, New South Wales, in 1945, Mervyn developed a love of photography while still a boy. An important influence was his mother, Marjorie, a keen amateur photographer who documented family life, Brewarrina and its First Nations community. Photography became a way for Mervyn to observe, record and understand the world around him.

In 1963, aged 17, he joined The Sydney Morning Herald as a cadet photographer, becoming the first Aboriginal person to work on a metropolitan daily newspaper. In 1971, he won the Nikon-Walkley Australian Press Photographer of the Year award, establishing himself among the country’s leading press photographers.

In 1974, Mervyn joined the Commonwealth Department of Aboriginal Affairs. The role took him across Australia documenting Aboriginal people, communities and a period of profound political and social change.

It was during this work, on 16 August 1975, that Mervyn made one of the defining photographs in Australian history.

At Wattie Creek, Prime Minister Gough Whitlam poured a handful of earth into the hand of Gurindji Elder Vincent Lingiari, symbolising the return of traditional lands to the Gurindji people following the long struggle that began with the Wave Hill Walk-Off.

Mervyn was there with his camera.

His photograph of that moment has become an enduring image of land rights, recognition and change in Australia. Yet it represents only one frame in an extraordinary body of work spanning more than six decades.

Throughout his career, Mervyn has photographed Aboriginal communities and leaders alongside politicians, artists, sporting figures and ordinary Australians. His photographs document both major events and quieter moments of everyday life, creating an invaluable visual record of Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australia.

His work has been exhibited extensively, including the landmark retrospective In Dreams: Mervyn Bishop — Thirty Years of Photography 1960–1990 and a major retrospective at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in 2017. He was awarded the Australia Council’s prestigious Red Ochre Award in 2000 for his outstanding contribution to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander arts.

Today, the State Library of New South Wales holds Mervyn Bishop’s extraordinary photographic archive of more than 200,000 images — a collection of such documentary importance that the Library has noted it is only the second time it has acquired the complete archive of an individual photographer, following Max Dupain.

But Mervyn Bishop’s legacy extends beyond awards, exhibitions and one famous photograph.

He opened a door.

At a time when Aboriginal people were overwhelmingly the subjects of photographs made by others, Mervyn Bishop stood behind the camera. He documented his own people, his own time and his own country with dignity, humour, honesty and respect.

More than sixty years after he first entered a newspaper photography department as a teenage cadet from Brewarrina, generations of First Nations photographers continue to walk through the door he helped open.

Uncle Mervyn Bishop didn’t simply photograph Australian history. He became part of it.

^{Photograph of Prime Minister Gough Whitlam pouring soil into the hand of traditional land owner Vincent Lingiari 1975: Mervyn Bishop  – with permission from Mervyn Bishop}

Dean Saffron

Is a Kamilaroi photographer & film maker will join us and yarn about his work, ensuring ‘our stories and struggles are not lost’

In particular he will yarn with us about his recent encounters with his Elder, mentor and lifelong hero, the famous Uncle Merve Bishop, the first Aboriginal Press photographer and why he wanted to enter his own photo of Uncle Merve in this year’s National Photographic Portrait Prize.

^{Photograph of Mervyn Bishop finalist 2026 National Photographic Portrait Prize; Dean Saffron}

Dean says of his hero Mervyn Bishop, ‘if that man can be the first visionary …I believe more of us can do it…’

Listen to more here 

Find out more about Dean’s work in Australia and internationally: by clicking here

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