Rick Stevens
Framing History: Gough’s Time
By Mike Bowers
November 14, 2012
When Gough Whitlam launched his election campaign in Blacktown 40 years ago, a nervous young photographer waiting in the wings captured a defining image of the man who would be prime minister.
Familiar faces dotted the crowd, older and thicker around the jowls in some cases, but all shining with a certain kind of adoration, visible even in the low lights of the Bowman Hall in Sydney’s outer suburb of Blacktown on Tuesday.
This was a room full of truly True Believers, celebrating the anniversary of the start of Labor’s “It’s Time” campaign.
Framing History: The Right Place for It's Time
The campaign would launch Edward Gough Whitlam AC QC to his place as the 21st Prime Minister of Australia, starting with the words “Men and women of Australia…”.
Whitlam, now too frail for such activities, filled the room nevertheless, via images projected onto a screen at the front.
All of those photographs were taken in the same hall on that historic night. The author of those pictures is Rick Stevens, who would go on to be a celebrated photojournalist — but in November 1972 he was a junior photographer with The Sydney Morning Herald.
The young, nervous Stevens was more at home taking pictures then known as ‘socials’ (pictures of people out socialising) than covering news events.
Stevens hid in the side-wings of the stage and, from there, took the definitive picture of a woman kissing Gough’s hand.
There is a papal quality to the image.
Former prime minister Bob Hawke, former senior minister Frank Crean, and entertainer Col Joye are just a few of the recognisable faces in the photograph. Hawke and Joye both returned this week to pay homage; Crean was represented by his son, the federal minister Simon Crean.
In the video above, from our series Framing History, Rick Stevens tells The Global Mail how a knot in his stomach drove him to capture a picture which won him the first of many of his awards during his long and distinguished career.
Mike Bowers/The Global Mail
Mike Bowers/The Global Mail
Mike Bowers/The Global Mail
Mike Bowers/The Global Mail
Mike Bowers/The Global Mail
Mike Bowers/The Global Mail
Rick Stevens/Fairfax Syndication
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