Extract from ABC News
Wayne Coolwell was a "trailblazing" journalist and broadcaster who documented his time in the media with photography. (Supplied: State Library of Queensland)
In black and white, etched in millions of tiny silver fragments, he sits in front of a radio console with a massive smile on his face.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are warned that this story includes names and images of Indigenous people who have died.
It's a film photograph of Mununjali and Wangerriburra man Wayne Coolwell, in his element, broadcasting on ABC Radio.
He was a trailblazer in many ways, a broadcaster, sports commentator, television host and, perhaps most importantly to the man himself, photographer.
He died last year at the age of 68.
From Wayne Coolwell's photo collection. (Supplied: SLQ by Wayne Coolwell)
In his journeys overseas and through the red Australian country, Coolwell never put down his camera and never stopped taking photos.
His snaps, captured on 35mm film and on exhibition at the State Library of Queensland (SLQ) from Saturday, are a living record documenting First Nations history in Australia.
Photographs of towering Australian figures like Archie Roach, Ernie Dingo, and Neville Bonner, and Indigenous communities around the world, show what Mr Coolwell loved best was to tell stories about culture.
Husband and wife musical pair Ruby Hunter and Archie Roach, photographed by Wayne Coolwell. (ABC News/Wayne Coolwell)
First Nations curator at SLQ Serene Fernando said the collection showed just how impactful a tool Coolwell's camera was over the years.
"Wayne's whole visual journal … really does show that strong storytelling emphasis that still photography can have," she said.
"But also his dedication to working with First Nations people, his own people, and using that as a way of creating understanding, and celebrating our excellence and identity in the community as well."
Collection curator Serene Fernando says Coolwell's collection captures the storytelling power of photography. (Supplied)
As he wrote in his 1993 book My Kind of People:
"I guess more that anything I am more aware of myself now, and how I feel about my country, and how I fit into its future.
"All of this has made me more contented and more comfortable with being an Aborigine."
Where it all began
In his oral history, recorded for SLQ in 2023, Coolwell explained where his love for photography came from.
He said his mother stored a collection of National Geographic magazines on a cupboard top shelf, and when he saw the photographs inside, he was transformed.
"One day I just got on this chair and just looked at all these National Geographic and saw these magnificent colour photographs of Canada, South America, Asia," he said.
Coolwell recorded his story in an oral history for the State Library in 2023. (ABC News)
"The photographs were brilliant. And I thought, that's a place I'd like to go one day. And that's a thing called photography.
"[I] just always loved the still image, getting that moment in time, that photograph of something or somebody in time, it just was magic."
He got a box brownie — a type of film camera made by Kodak in the early 20th century — and took his first photo in 1968.
Coolwell acquired a box brownie camera in the 1960s and took his first photos in 1968. (ABC News/Wayne Coolwell)
Coolwell was characteristically humble about his approach to photography.
"I got some really good photographs. I got some bad photographs as well, some ordinary photographs. That's life, isn't it?" he said in the oral history.
'For everyone — both black and white'
Coolwell attributed his drive to tell stories to experiencing things like Martin Luther King Jr's 'I have a dream' speech, and the protest at the 1968 Olympic Games in Mexico.
The famous image of Tommie Smith and John Carlos beside Australian Peter Norman at the 1968 Mexico Olympics inspired Coolwell. (Getty: Bettmann)
"The 1960s I regard as the decade of a lifetime. There was so much happening with so much around the world, it just affected me so much," he said.
He worked for Queensland Newspapers during the 1970s, and took photos for publications in Europe, before returning to Australia and applying for a job with the ABC — and finding success.
It was here that he became the inaugural presenter of the ABC's Indigenous current affairs program Speaking Out on Radio National.
"It was a program run by First Nations people, but for everyone — both black and white," he said in the oral history.
He moved between news and current affairs and sports broadcasting, heading to Darwin in 1988 to set up the city's ABC Sports department.
"It really did capture his pride in his own people that a lot of First Nations people are seen as elite athletes," Ms Fernando said.
"And I think Wayne really did sit at the forefront of emerging talent and emerging excellence, and he really did craft his career around shining a light on, and celebrating, Aboriginal excellence and identity in the community."
'Can't ask for a more powerful decade' than the 90s
Much of his most striking work was captured during the 1990s, which Coolwell described by saying "you can't ask for a more powerful decade, really, for Aboriginal people than the 90s".
"When I look back on some of the interviews that we did, I just think 'so many stories, so many brave people, incredible time for Australia.'"
1993 was an important year that saw Coolwell travel overseas and around the country speaking to Indigenous people — and taking photos along the way.
Wayne Coolwell's photographs of figures like Ernie Dingo document indigenous Australian history. (ABC News/Wayne Coolwell)
He released his book, My Kind of People, in the same year. It included personal portraits of First Nations people who had made contributions to Australian culture, and told their stories.
"They were fascinating, you know. Some people didn't agree with the others … but we're all connected to our spirituality and our culture and heritage," Coolwell said.
"That's undeniable, but we're all different, which is good. You need that."
Coolwell said the experience of documenting history in still photography was "magic". (ABC News/Wayne Coolwell)
He left the ABC in 1999 after 15 years, saying he "just felt like I'd done everything".
"I couldn't have asked for anything more. Beautiful."
Tambo's return
The photographs that best represent what the art form meant to Wayne Coolwell are perhaps those of the return of Tambo's remains to Palm Island in 1994.
"He was an Aboriginal person that was stolen off Palm Island … and he was taken by Barnum & Bailey Circus to America to perform as a freak," Coolwell said.
Tambo never returned to Australia in life, dying in 1884 of pneumonia. His remains were found more than a century later in Cleveland, Ohio, and brought back to Australia to be laid to rest.
From Wayne Coolwell's photo collection showing the return of Tambo's remains. (Supplied: SLQ by Wayne Coolwell)
"I'll never forget that day sitting there and … when his body came in, this huge black cloud came over the mountain. Just hovered over the mountain for about five minutes," Coolwell said.
"It just sat there for five minutes and just disappeared. And his remains came on board and they just buried them, was just an amazing thing. Great to see after such a long time."
The showcase opens on Saturday, March 28 and will run until mid-October at the State Library of Queensland.
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