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CAPTAIN SAMUEL SWEET (1825 - 1886)

Captain Samuel White Sweet was a Master Mariner and Photographer who left his career as a Master Mariner in the British Navy to become one of Australia’s first great outdoor photographers.

Sweet was already an accomplished photographer when he arrived in Queensland in 1864, bringing his photographic equipment with him from England. After establishing himself as a professional photographer in South Brisbane, he worked for short time on commissions in Sydney. Even at this early stage of his career Sweet was already advertising his own new waxing process, which increased the contrast in his images and made them glossier and more durable.

In November 1866 Sweet settled in Adelaide and spent the next twenty years photographing the most important period of South Australia’s development. He ran his photography business in South Australia between 1866 and 1886, under the professional name of ‘Captain Sweet, Landscape Photographer’. He photographed the growth of the city from its infancy to economic, cultural and industrial maturity; witnessing the construction of some of Adelaide’s most important buildings and the establishment of its first major transport and communication systems. Sweet became a master of the photographic methods of the time – wet plate glass negatives and albumen silver photographic prints – and was the first to use dry plate negatives in South Australia.

Sweet worked from a number of studios in Adelaide and was well known by reputation and through frequent critical acclaim in the press. The Government sent his photographs and elaborate boxed albums of views to world fairs to show the enormous progress within South Australia and the wealth of opportunities the colony held for settlers and investors.

Sweet died in January 1886. His widow, Elizabeth, continued to run Sweet’s photography business from their Adelaide Arcade Studio until 1892.

Today Sweet’s photographs can be found in the National Gallery of Australia and National Library of Australia, as well as in significant collections held by the Art Gallery of South Australia, State Library of South Australia and South Australian Museum.

 

© Karen Magee 2008 - 2009