Mervyn Bishop was Australia's first Indigenous press photographer. Bishop's photography career started in 1954 when he borrowed his mother's camera. In 1962 he was a successful applicant for a cadetship with the Sydney Morning Herald. Bishop also worked as a photographer at the Department of Aboriginal Affairs, photographic assistant and advisor for the National Geographic Society, and taught photography at Tranby College and the Eora Centre.
While he was a cadet with the Sydney Morning Herald, Bishop finished the Photography Certificate Course at Sydney Technical College. He also completed an Associate Diploma of Adult Education (Aboriginal Education) in 1989.
Bishop exhibited his work in the NADOC 1986 Exhibition of Aboriginal and Islander Photographers at the Aboriginal Artists Gallery. Bishop's first solo exhibition was called In Dreams: Mervyn Bishop Thirty Years of Photography 1960-1990 (1991). His solo exhibition then toured Australia and overseas for over a decade. Bishop also participated in the New Images in Australian History exhibition at the University of Sydney's Tin Shed Gallery (1989). His photography was displayed in Images of Black Sport at the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney (1991); Her Story: Images of Domestic Labour in Australian Art at the S. H. Ervin Gallery (1991); Aratjara: Art of the First Australians (1993), and Urban Focus: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Art from the Urban Areas of Australia at the National Gallery of Australia, Canberra (1994).
Bishop's iconic works include the photo of Gough Whitlam pouring red sand into Vincent Lingiari's hand, and the Life and Death Dash - displaying a nun running with a choking child in her arms. The later photograph won him the Press Photographer of the Year (1971).
