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Council of Heads of Australasian Herbaria | ![]() |
Born on 3 February 1894, at Deans Marsh (northern Otway district, Victoria); died on 30 July 1963 at Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital Victoria.
His father was engaged in farming.
During 1900 the parents moved with their young family of four sons and three daughters to Darnum in central Gippsland, and there Bert was educated.
In 1916 he enlisted
for active service in World War I, but suffered a severe leg injury soon after arrival at the
front, and the wounded limb was amputated.
In 1924 he married Miss Pearl
E. Jenkin of Castlemaine, and
he subsequentiy worked at Warragul all through the depression
years.
He transferred to Melbourne in 1936, as senior photographer at the G.P.0. [Melbourne General Post Office, later privatised as part of 'Australia Post']
About 1937 he undertook
to photograph a series of Australian flowers for overseas publicity by the Department of In-
formation, and he became so
engrossed in this project that
wildflower portraiture was
henceforth his major hobby.
Up to 1956 he had staged five exhibitions of exquisitely hand-tinted wildflower photos at the
Kodak Galleries in Melbourne: it
was always his aim to portray a
plant in its natural habitat,
alongside a close-up study of its
blossom or fruit.
For decades, H. T. Reeves had
scorned the 'snapshot' trend
among photographers, maintaining that only long, careful exposures and much patience gave
satisfactory results. He would carry an old-fashioned, cumbersome camera and supply of
heavy glass plates over hill and
dale for miles, content if he
secured half a dozen perfect exposures in a day's tramping.
But, shortly after retirement in
February 1959, he launched for
the first time into 35mm colour
photography with a very modern 'Contaflex' camera.
His subject matter was of general
scenery and objects of natural
history interest, but he leaned
more and more toward the fungi
which claimed his whole attention at the end.
During these
last four years he built up a
magnificent collection of fungal
colour transparencies, working
chiefly with fast 'Anscochrome'
film and never using a flashlight.
His physical handicap did not
deter him from venturing into
remote mountain gullies during
wintertime, in pursuit of un-
usual fungi.
Apart from
his own vast collection of negatives, he acquired those of the
late W. H. Nicholls (distinguished orchidologist) and of other
photographers. All these negatives, also his colour transparencies, were bequeathed to the
National Herbarium of Victoria.
He also kept a seemingly endless stock of hand-coloured lantern-slides that his
friends borrowed freely for lecture purposes.
The nature magazine 'Wild
Life' was no sooner launched
in October 1938 than Reeves became one of its principal photographic contributors.
His
botanical portraits are a conspicuous feature in E, E. Lord's
Shrubs and Trees for Australian
Gardens (1st ed. 1948), Jean
Galbraith's Wildflowers of Victoria (1950) and Thistle Harris's Australian Plants for the
Garden (1953).
Source: Extracted from:
J.H. Willis in:
'Salute to a Master Plant Photographer (the Late Herbert Trethowan Reeves), Victorian Naturalist, Vol. 80, November 1963.
Portrait Photo: Vict.Nat. article above.
Data from 26 specimens