SA Drink Of The Week

Robin Sellick

Musical Pilgrimage

Robin Sellick arrived at Don Dunstan’s Norwood home in the early 1990s having accidentally addressed his letter to “Sir Donald Dunstan” – a mistake that could have ended the conversation before it began. Instead, it launched one of the most distinctive portrait photography careers in Australian cultural history. From that swimming pool session with our most colourful premier to intimate moments with Julia Gillard before her rise to power, Sellick’s lens has documented the moments when Australia stopped apologising for itself and started celebrating.

The SA Drink Of The Week features tasting notes of Beresford’s latest pinot noir, where winemaker John Gledhill guides us through savoury raspberry and that curious sensation Steve describes as “freshly cut red lawn” – a vintage perfect for the upcoming Pinot and Pasta Afternoon at McLaren Vale.

Our Musical Pilgrimage takes a melancholic turn with an original composition mourning the loss of the West End Brewery, capturing not just the building’s demolition but the dissolution of simple pleasures that once bound South Australian communities together.

You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We’re here to serve!

The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for Best Interview Podcast in Australia at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for Best News and Current Affairs Podcast in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.

And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It’s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we’ll add you to the list: podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au

If you enjoy the show, please leave us a 5-star review in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store – The Adelaide Show Shop. We’d greatly appreciate it.

And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here’s our index of all episode in one concise
page.

Running Sheet: Photographing Australian Icons With Robin Sellick

00:00:00 Intro

Introduction

00:04:05 SA Drink Of The Week

Th SA Drink Of The Week is the Beresford Estate 2024 Emblem Pinot Noir.

Winemaker John Gledhill (from Gledhill Vignerons and our regular wine palate) joins Steve for the tasting of Beresford’s latest cool climate expression from Adelaide Hills fruit. The wine presents as light, translucent crimson with legs suggesting moderate alcohol content sitting around 12 to 12.5 percent. Steve’s unusual tasting note of “freshly cut red lawn” proves surprisingly apt, capturing the wine’s distinctive red fruit character that Gledhill translates as autumn leaves and forest floor earthiness.

The palate delivers a ball of fruit on entry followed by crisp acid structure, with minimal tannin creating what Gledhill describes as “soft and round” mouthfeel. The conversation flows naturally toward food pairing, with Gledhill suggesting tomato-based pasta dishes with mild salami and black olives – perfect for Beresford’s Pinot and Pasta Afternoon scheduled for September 13th at their McLaren Vale cellar door.

00:13:05 Robin Sellick and The Sellick Archive

Robin Sellick started taking dog portraits in Broken Hill at 15, not knowing he’d spend the next three decades documenting Australia’s cultural coming of age. From Don Dunstan‘s Norwood loungeroom to Cate Blanchett‘s first editorial shoot, from Sir Donald Bradman‘s quiet Adelaide home to Kylie Minogue on a North Adelaide balcony, his lens captured the moments when we stopped apologising for being Australian and started celebrating it. His portraits hang in the National Portrait Gallery, but more than that, they’ve shaped how we see ourselves. Today, he’s releasing museum-grade collector editions from his archive of over 600+ portrait sessions via is website gallery, The Sellick Archive. What intrigues me about Robin is that he didn’t just document our stars, he helped create the visual language that made Australia look like somewhere that mattered.

The conversation begins with photography’s fundamental challenge: separating snapshot from art. “The key with photography is you have to be able to look at something emotionally and objectively within five seconds of the same thing,” Sellick explains, describing the mental gymnastics required to capture more than mere documentation. His journey from 15-year-old dog portrait photographer in Broken Hill to documenting Australia’s cultural awakening reveals an artist who understood that great portraiture demands risk-taking.

Sellick’s approach stems from Henri Cartier-Bresson’s decisive moment theory, but with a crucial difference. “Every photograph you take, you are in because you made a decision to point the camera in that direction,” he notes. Where photojournalism seeks objectivity, portraiture embraces collaboration. “A portrait is always a collaboration… you involve the person in that process.”

The Don Dunstan swimming pool photograph emerged from this collaborative boldness. Arriving at the Norwood home, Sellick complimented the pool, Dunstan mentioned his morning swim, and within moments South Australia’s most flamboyant premier was diving back into his Speedos. “I’m not there to take an ordinary photograph. I’m there to take a great photograph to the best of my ability,” Sellick recalls of his unflinching approach.

The technical mastery behind his distinctive 1990s look came from cross-processing slide film in colour negative chemicals – a technique discovered accidentally during his Broken Hill photo lab days. This created the hyperreal, saturated images that helped define Australian editorial photography. “Back then, the only photographic awards in Australia were through the Australian Institute of Professional Photography… they were still very much in the late seventies mindset. So these pictures that I produced were just right out of the box.”

His famous Julia Gillard portrait required different psychology. Photographing her in 2006 at her home, Sellick positioned her against a shed – traditionally masculine domain – lit with purple light. “It was an image about this woman stepping into the domain of men,” he explains. The prescience proved remarkable: within years she would become Australia’s first female Prime Minister.

The technical challenges of film photography created their own discipline. Shooting the Bradman portrait on 400 ASA film pushed five stops to 12,800 ASA created that distinctive grain, but it was calculated risk. “You underexpose it by five stops… 32 times underexposed,” he explains. “You’ve gotta walk across the high wire to get to the good stuff.”

The Kylie Minogue session broke new ground as the first major celebrity shoot conducted outside Sydney or Melbourne. Working from his Palmer Place mansion in North Adelaide, Sellick convinced Mushroom Records to trust Adelaide’s creative infrastructure. The balcony shot that became iconic was the day’s final frame, taken after the production machine dispersed. “I sent the assistants away and it was just her and me,” creating intimacy impossible amid the dozen-person entourage.

His approach to celebrities reveals portraiture’s deeper psychology. “You actually fall in love with the person while you’re taking their photograph… you go through the process of falling in love with them before the shoot, and then you’re in love with them while you’re taking the photograph. And then it’s over.”

The Steve Irwin elephant photograph required moving the elephant rather than the hyperactive conservationist. “Every time I started to take photographs, he started to perform… it was easier to move the elephant than it was to move Steve.” This anecdote captures Sellick’s ability to navigate celebrity psychology whilst maintaining his artistic vision.

Looking toward Australia’s photographic identity, Sellick identifies our cultural immaturity. “We still tend to celebrate mimicry rather than celebrate individuality and expression that expresses the identity of Australia.” He traces creative development through four stages: mimicry, experimentation, commitment, legacy. “We get stuck in that mimicry stage and we don’t seem to encourage experimentation.”

His current archive project offers museum-grade collector editions of more than 600 portrait sessions, using German papers and high-end giclée printing for works designed to last centuries. The photographs document not just individuals but Australia’s cultural coming of age – moments when a young nation found confidence to celebrate its own stories.

01:34:45 Musical Pilgrimage

In the Musical Pilgrimate, we play a track by Steve Davis & The Virtualosos, Shout Your Mates Another Round, his reflection on the loss of the West End Brewery.

Steve Davis & The Virtualosos deliver a melancholic tribute to the demolished West End Brewery, mourning not just architecture but the simple pleasures that bound South Australian communities. The song weaves together memories of shared amber glass bottles, family tables where beer flowed freely, and the brewery’s role supporting local sports teams.

The composition balances nostalgia with acceptance, acknowledging that whilst West End “wasn’t great, it wasn’t best, but it was ours from east to west.” The Pickaxe bottle imagery connects to South Australia’s brewing heritage, when consortiums created shared glass manufacturing to serve multiple breweries across the state.

Steve’s personal connection deepened when his father revealed the family link: his grandfather worked at the original Hindley Street brewery before operations consolidated in Thebarton. This discovery adds genealogical weight to the cultural mourning, emphasising how industrial heritage intertwines with personal memory.

Robin Sellick arrived at Don Dunstan&rsquo;s Norwood home in the early 1990s having accidentally addressed his letter to &ldquo;Sir Donald Dunstan&rdquo; &ndash; a mistake that could have ended the conversation before it began. Instead, it launched one of the most distinctive portrait photography careers in Australian cultural history. From that swimming pool session with our most colourful premier to intimate moments with Julia Gillard before her rise to power, Sellick&rsquo;s lens has documented the moments when Australia stopped apologising for itself and started celebrating.
The SA Drink Of The Week features tasting notes of Beresford&rsquo;s latest pinot noir, where winemaker John Gledhill guides us through savoury raspberry and that curious sensation Steve describes as &ldquo;freshly cut red lawn&rdquo; &ndash; a vintage perfect for the upcoming Pinot and Pasta Afternoon at McLaren Vale.
Our Musical Pilgrimage takes a melancholic turn with an original composition mourning the loss of the West End Brewery, capturing not just the building&rsquo;s demolition but the dissolution of simple pleasures that once bound South Australian communities together.
You can navigate episodes using chapter markers in your podcast app. Not a fan of one segment? You can click next to jump to the next chapter in the show. We&rsquo;re here to serve!
The Adelaide Show Podcast: Awarded Silver for&nbsp;Best Interview Podcast in Australia&nbsp;at the 2021 Australian Podcast Awards and named as Finalist for&nbsp;Best News and Current Affairs Podcast&nbsp;in the 2018 Australian Podcast Awards.
And please consider becoming part of our podcast by joining our Inner Circle. It&rsquo;s an email list. Join it and you might get an email on a Sunday or Monday seeking question ideas, guest ideas and requests for other bits of feedback about YOUR podcast, The Adelaide Show. Email us directly and we&rsquo;ll add you to the list:&nbsp;<a href="mailto:podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au">podcast@theadelaideshow.com.au</a>
If you enjoy the show, please&nbsp;<a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/another-boring-thursday-night/id696302138">leave us a 5-star review&nbsp;</a>in iTunes or other podcast sites, or buy some great merch from our Red Bubble store &ndash;&nbsp;<a href="https://www.redbubble.com/people/theadelaideshow/shop?asc=u">The Adelaide Show Shop</a>. We&rsquo;d greatly appreciate it.
And please talk about us and share our episodes on social media, it really helps build our community. Oh, and here&rsquo;s&nbsp;<a href="https://theadelaideshow.com.au/complete-list-adelaide-show-episodes/">our index of all episode in one concise page.</a>
Running Sheet: Photographing Australian Icons With Robin Sellick
00:00:00&nbsp;Intro
Introduction
00:04:05&nbsp;SA Drink Of The Week
Th SA Drink Of The Week is the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.beresfordestate.com.au/">Beresford Estate</a>&nbsp;2024 Emblem Pinot Noir.
Winemaker John Gledhill (from&nbsp;<a href="https://gledhillwines.com.au/">Gledhill Vignerons</a>&nbsp;and our regular wine palate) joins Steve for the tasting of Beresford&rsquo;s latest cool climate expression from Adelaide Hills fruit. The wine presents as light, translucent crimson with legs suggesting moderate alcohol content sitting around 12 to 12.5 percent. Steve&rsquo;s unusual tasting note of &ldquo;freshly cut red lawn&rdquo; proves surprisingly apt, capturing the wine&rsquo;s distinctive red fruit character that Gledhill translates as autumn leaves and forest floor earthiness.
The palate delivers a ball of fruit on entry followed by crisp acid structure, with minimal tannin creating what Gledhill describes as &ldquo;soft and round&rdquo; mouthfeel. The conversation flows naturally toward food pairing, with Gledhill suggesting tomato-based pasta dishes with mild salami and black olives &ndash; perfect for Beresford&rsquo;s Pinot and Pasta Afternoon scheduled for September 13th at their McLaren Vale cellar door.
00:13:05&nbsp;Robin Sellick and The Sellick Archive
Robin Sellick started taking dog portraits in Broken Hill at 15, not knowing he&rsquo;d spend the next three decades documenting Australia&rsquo;s cultural coming of age. From&nbsp;<a href="https://dunstan.org.au/about/don-dunstan/">Don Dunstan</a>&lsquo;s Norwood loungeroom to&nbsp;<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cate_Blanchett">Cate Blanchett</a>&lsquo;s first editorial shoot, from&nbsp;<a href="https://www.slsa.sa.gov.au/don-bradman">Sir Donald Bradman</a>&lsquo;s quiet Adelaide home to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kylie.com/">Kylie Minogue</a>&nbsp;on a North Adelaide balcony, his lens captured the moments when we stopped apologising for being Australian and started celebrating it. His portraits hang in the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.portrait.gov.au/">National Portrait Gallery</a>, but more than that, they&rsquo;ve shaped how we see ourselves. Today, he&rsquo;s releasing museum-grade collector editions from his archive of over 600+ portrait sessions via is website gallery,&nbsp;<a href="https://thesellickarchive.com.au/">The Sellick Archive</a>. What intrigues me about Robin is that he didn&rsquo;t just document our stars, he helped create the visual language that made Australia look like somewhere that mattered.
The conversation begins with photography&rsquo;s fundamental challenge: separating snapshot from art. &ldquo;The key with photography is you have to be able to look at something emotionally and objectively within five seconds of the same thing,&rdquo; Sellick explains, describing the mental gymnastics required to capture more than mere documentation. His journey from 15-year-old dog portrait photographer in Broken Hill to documenting Australia&rsquo;s cultural awakening reveals an artist who understood that great portraiture demands risk-taking.
Sellick&rsquo;s approach stems from Henri Cartier-Bresson&rsquo;s decisive moment theory, but with a crucial difference. &ldquo;Every photograph you take, you are in because you made a decision to point the camera in that direction,&rdquo; he notes. Where photojournalism seeks objectivity, portraiture embraces collaboration. &ldquo;A portrait is always a collaboration&hellip; you involve the person in that process.&rdquo;
The Don Dunstan swimming pool photograph emerged from this collaborative boldness. Arriving at the Norwood home, Sellick complimented the pool, Dunstan mentioned his morning swim, and within moments South Australia&rsquo;s most flamboyant premier was diving back into his Speedos. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not there to take an ordinary photograph. I&rsquo;m there to take a great photograph to the best of my ability,&rdquo; Sellick recalls of his unflinching approach.
The technical mastery behind his distinctive 1990s look came from cross-processing slide film in colour negative chemicals &ndash; a technique discovered accidentally during his Broken Hill photo lab days. This created the hyperreal, saturated images that helped define Australian editorial photography. &ldquo;Back then, the only photographic awards in Australia were through the Australian Institute of Professional Photography&hellip; they were still very much in the late seventies mindset. So these pictures that I produced were just right out of the box.&rdquo;
His famous&nbsp;<a href="https://www.juliagillard.com.au/">Julia Gillard</a>&nbsp;portrait required different psychology. Photographing her in 2006 at her home, Sellick positioned her against a shed &ndash; traditionally masculine domain &ndash; lit with purple light. &ldquo;It was an image about this woman stepping into the domain of men,&rdquo; he explains. The prescience proved remarkable: within years she would become Australia&rsquo;s first female Prime Minister.
The technical challenges of film photography created their own discipline. Shooting the Bradman portrait on 400 ASA film pushed five stops to 12,800 ASA created that distinctive grain, but it was calculated risk. &ldquo;You underexpose it by five stops&hellip; 32 times underexposed,&rdquo; he explains. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve gotta walk across the high wire to get to the good stuff.&rdquo;
The Kylie Minogue session broke new ground as the first major celebrity shoot conducted outside Sydney or Melbourne. Working from his Palmer Place mansion in North Adelaide, Sellick convinced&nbsp;<a href="https://mushroomgroup.com/">Mushroom Records</a>&nbsp;to trust Adelaide&rsquo;s creative infrastructure. The balcony shot that became iconic was the day&rsquo;s final frame, taken after the production machine dispersed. &ldquo;I sent the assistants away and it was just her and me,&rdquo; creating intimacy impossible amid the dozen-person entourage.
His approach to celebrities reveals portraiture&rsquo;s deeper psychology. &ldquo;You actually fall in love with the person while you&rsquo;re taking their photograph&hellip; you go through the process of falling in love with them before the shoot, and then you&rsquo;re in love with them while you&rsquo;re taking the photograph. And then it&rsquo;s over.&rdquo;
The&nbsp;<a href="https://australiazoo.com.au/about-us/the-irwins/">Steve Irwin</a>&nbsp;elephant photograph required moving the elephant rather than the hyperactive conservationist. &ldquo;Every time I started to take photographs, he started to perform&hellip; it was easier to move the elephant than it was to move Steve.&rdquo; This anecdote captures Sellick&rsquo;s ability to navigate celebrity psychology whilst maintaining his artistic vision.
Looking toward Australia&rsquo;s photographic identity, Sellick identifies our cultural immaturity. &ldquo;We still tend to celebrate mimicry rather than celebrate individuality and expression that expresses the identity of Australia.&rdquo; He traces creative development through four stages: mimicry, experimentation, commitment, legacy. &ldquo;We get stuck in that mimicry stage and we don&rsquo;t seem to encourage experimentation.&rdquo;
His current archive project offers museum-grade collector editions of more than 600 portrait sessions, using German papers and high-end gicl&eacute;e printing for works designed to last centuries. The photographs document not just individuals but Australia&rsquo;s cultural coming of age &ndash; moments when a young nation found confidence to celebrate its own stories.
01:34:45&nbsp;Musical Pilgrimage
In the Musical Pilgrimate, we play a track by&nbsp;<a href="https://stevedavis.com.au/steve-davis-the-virtualosos/">Steve Davis &amp; The Virtualosos</a>,&nbsp;Shout Your Mates Another Round,&nbsp;his reflection on the loss of the West End Brewery.
Steve Davis &amp; The Virtualosos deliver a melancholic tribute to the demolished West End Brewery, mourning not just architecture but the simple pleasures that bound South Australian communities. The song weaves together memories of shared amber glass bottles, family tables where beer flowed freely, and the brewery&rsquo;s role supporting local sports teams.
The composition balances nostalgia with acceptance, acknowledging that whilst West End &ldquo;wasn&rsquo;t great, it wasn&rsquo;t best, but it was ours from east to west.&rdquo; The Pickaxe bottle imagery connects to South Australia&rsquo;s brewing heritage, when consortiums created shared glass manufacturing to serve multiple breweries across the state.
Steve&rsquo;s personal connection deepened when his father revealed the family link: his grandfather worked at the original Hindley Street brewery before operations consolidated in Thebarton. This discovery adds genealogical weight to the cultural mourning, emphasising how industrial heritage intertwines with personal memory.

A weekly podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, news, interviews, chat and quizzes. 

Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. 

The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis and Nigel Dobson-Keeffe.

Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday (when we have published a new episode) with an overview of that week's show. Plus, consider joining our Inner Circle; a small group of passionate South Aussies who allow us to pick their brains and gain interviewee suggestions.

This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us each week as a co-presenter to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, ...

The Adelaide Show

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, and general news. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis, and ends with an original song by a South Australian artist. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday with an overview of that week's show. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

A podcast recorded in Adelaide that puts South Australian passion on centre stage with a featured guest who joins us to share how they're pursuing their passions. We venture across topics as diverse as history, wine, food, art, music, relationships, critical thinking, health, and general news. Every single interview, every single show, unlocks insights into what drives people to be doing what they're doing and what keeps them striving. The Adelaide Show is produced by Steve Davis, and ends with an original song by a South Australian artist. Please subscribe to our In Crowd list; you get an email each Friday with an overview of that week's show. This podcast began life as Another Boring Thursday Night In Adelaide from episodes 1-79.

Portrait photographer Robin Sellick guides us through three decades of capturing Australia’s cultural luminaries, from Don Dunstan’s poolside vulnerability to Kylie Minogue’s North Adelaide balcony moment, whilst we savour Beresford Wines’ elegant 2024 emblem Pinot Noir with winemaker John Gledhill and reflect on the loss of West End Brewery through an original musical tribute.