Stuart Gore

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Photo, 1948, courtesy SLWA 022711PD (from Facebook)

SLWA:
Stuart Gore (1905-1984) was born in Portsmouth, England, in 1905 and came to Australia with his parents at the age of three. He began his career as a photographer at the age of 19. He was one of Western Autralia’s first aerial photographers and was a foundation member of the Professional Photographers Association of Western Australia. He took aerial photographs for the Royal Australian Air Force and was an official war photographer during World War II. He was a regular contributor to the feature pages of the West Australian and in addition to photography, undertook other varied occupations, such as author, law clerk, gold miner, aerial surveyor, mail‐cart driver, film maker and lecturer. He also wrote under the pseudonym Fiona Stuart.

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Southern Cross, Maylands Aerodrome, 1929, courtesy SLWA 041403PD (from Facebook)

State Library of Western Australia:
Photographer Stuart Gore left school at fourteen. He got a job as an office boy and saved five shillings for his first camera. A second hand 00 Primo (the predecessor of the box Brownie). From the moment Stuart developed his first film with a candle red lamp, he was "hooked". Then a local bookseller - "a nice old bloke with gold-rimmed spectacles" - had an enormous number of back numbers of a book called Photography in Focus, which he offered to Stuart for twopence each. These fuelled young Stuart's passion all the more and photography became his “whole life”. An inquisitive boy in short pants with a 00 Primo, began hanging around the photographic studios of the likes of Nixon, Orloff and Lang in Fremantle. Eventually he was invited inside to learn more. In 1923, after a short time in England, Stuart opened his own little photography establishment in Market Street Fremantle. An eighteen-year-old with only a “rough idea of what to do” in business but knowing that he “just wanted to do photography – of any sort”. Stuart went on to become one of WA's first aerial photographers and was a foundation member of the Professional Photographers Association of Australia. He was an official war photographer during World World II and a regular contributor to the West Australian.
Listen to an interview with Stuart Gore from the State Library's Oral History collection [bit.ly/37WnNdo here] https://encore.slwa.wa.gov.au/iii/encore/record/C__Rb1811453__Sstuart%20gore__P0,1__Orightresult__X6?lang=eng&suite=def&ivts=2%2BQ7nvNIRxVqmdiI3v4zxg%3D%3D&casts=EM%2BAgT3NPANgmZGyMmov%2Fw%3D%3D#attachedMediaSection .

References and Links

SLWA

Freotopia

This page incorporates material from Garry Gillard's Freotopia website, that he started in 2014 and the contents of which he donated to Wikimedia Australia in 2024. The content was originally created on 17 November, 2016 and hosted at freotopia.org/people/gorestuart.html (it was last updated on 25 February, 2024), and has been edited since it was imported here (see page history). The donated data is also preserved in the Internet Archive's collection.