Suspended Animations: Mobilities in Rock Art Research

Abstract

During an eighteen-month visit to Arnhem Land in 1922/23 overland adventurer Francis Birtles made a photograph of two Australian Aboriginal men with a dugout canoe and an Oldsmobile motorcar (Figure 4.1). Aside from the caption �Going Alligator Hunting� written in pencil on the back, very little is known about the photo in the National Library of Australia collection (http://nla.gov.au/nla. pic-vn3302182). There is no indication of the identity of the individuals present within the image, nor do we know anything about the conditions under which the photograph was taken. The image would seem to suggest that the Aboriginal men were in the process of loading a canoe onto a car, when the younger man in the centre paused momentarily to face the camera.