Throughout his career Graham made images across multiple genres, including portraiture and landscape. But as Mikaela spent time looking through Graham’s archive of negatives, it was his social documentary images that she constantly returned to, especially as there were so many compelling photographs that had never been printed.

Although Graham enjoyed the challenge of street photography, what he really loved were the small scale outdoor events that flourished in south-east Queensland: beach girl contests, tug-o-war competitions, swap meets and shows featuring dogs, horses and even camels. The photographs in this exhibition were mostly taken in the 1970s and 80s, a period when these events flourished. For a photographer looking for spontaneous social life on public display, they were heaven.

Graham’s talent for social documentary resulted in his being commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery (now QAGOMA) for their Journeys North project, and his love of depicting people at play was also expressed through his exhibitions, and related book, of Gold Coast images.

This exhibition reaffirms Graham Burstow’s reputation as a significant Australian social documentary photographer.

How do you stage an exhibition from a career spanning 70 years of film photography? This was the dilemma facing Mikaela Burstow, the granddaughter of Toowoomba-based photographer Graham Burstow (1927–2022), in curating this show.