Shooting The Past: Recent Episodes

ABC Radio

Shooting The Past brings you Australian history through a new lens. Each episode features a historical event or era, and starts with a single photograph and the question; what is going on in this picture?

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An arresting photograph has Clare Wright duck-diving into the history of surfing in Australia.

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A fishy looking photograph throws Clare Wright into the deep end of the battle between industry and sustainability.

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Clare Wright explores the story behind a studio portrait of an Edwardian family, and raises some tricky questions about citizenship, the Australian constitution and the subtle art of belonging.

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Clare Wright unravels the dramatic story within a family photograph that takes us to the searing heart of an Australian summer tragedy — bushfire.

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A photograph of two men — one Indigenous and one non-Indigenous — holding hands, leads Clare Wright to investigate the history of Aboriginal resistance in Australia.

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Clare Wright tries to uncover the story behind a baffling photograph, and finds herself transported back to Australia in the 1960s.

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A photograph of a man radiating pride amidst a sea of riotous colour and luxury, sends Clare Wright diving into the recent history of immigration to Australia.

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A family photograph of two prim women standing in barren wasteland casts Clare Wright into the heart of Victorian Mallee country, to unearth a story of destruction and renewal.

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Clare Wright unlocks the story behind a 1969 press photograph of a neatly dressed woman smiling demurely at the camera while chained to the front doors of a city building.

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Clare Wright heads to the hallowed ground of the MCG to tackle the man in the centre of a photograph which defies every notion of the modern day professional sporting hero.

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Clare Wright looks squarely into the faces of a line of bed-ridden boys in a photograph that recalls the terrifying scourge of polio, a disease which ravaged Australia in the first half of the 20th century.

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An affecting photograph of a wounded unknown WW1 soldier takes Clare Wright deep into Anzac territory, to examine the physical and moral legacies of war.

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Clare Wright massages the meaning behind an intriguing photograph which reveals a very different view of the White Australia era.

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Clare Wright poses a slippery question about a photograph of Wurundjeri leader William Barak, taken at Coranderrk station in 1897.

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A new history program from ABC RN. Shooting The Past brings you Australian history by using a photograph to discover the story behind it. Begins Friday September 1 at 1.30 pm on ABC RN, ABC Radio app and iTunes.