Australian photographer

The flamboyant and self-assured Walter Barnett ran the Falk photographic studios in Sydney. Meeting up with the Frenchman Marius Sestier in August 1896 on a steamer as the latter was taking the Lumière Cinématographe to Australia they agreed to an informal partnership. After a private screening on 18 September at Sydney's Lyceum Theatre they began to exhibit films at 237 Pitt Street. They soon starting taking films as well, the first known to have been produced in Australia (for details of these, see Sestier entry), though it was Sestier who did the filming and projecting, Barnett who provided photographic facilities, promoted himself and the Cinématographe with equal vigour, and directed the films. This latter activity becomes very clear in the celebrated films of the Melbourne Cup horse race (taken 3 November 1896), where Barnett can be seen directing the action, glancing at the camera and ensuring that the right people are seen to move in front of it. In the film showing the finish of the race, Barnett runs out from behind the camera and urges the crowds to raise their hats. Barnett and Sestier parted company when the latter moved on to Adelaide at the end of 1896, after which Barnett continued to operate the Lumière salon in Sydney until March 1897. He is next recorded as having filmed four scenes of the England v Australia cricket Test in Sydney, December 1897. Taken with a Cinématographe and shown in both Australia and Britain (where they were marketed by Fuerst Brothers), one of the films survives, showing Prince Ranjitsinhji practising in the nets, the first cricket film. Barnett moved his photography business to London in 1898, then moved to Dieppe in 1916, and died on 16 January 1934 in Nice.

Chris Long / Luke McKernan