During the half-century from the 1890s to the 1940s, the theme of the "bush" emerged as a formative element in a new Australian identity. Assumptions about the Central Australian frontier and its people - black and white - then hardened into stereotypes that still affect our perceptions of this country. The photographs in this book, from the rich collections of the South Australian Museum, take us behind those stereotypes, to the reality of the frontier itself. The photographers were seven remarkable men whose vocations took them into the heart of Central Australia, long before tourism and colour photography transformed our view of the outback. The photographers are: Francis J. Gillen, Captain Samuel Albert White, George Aiston, Ernest Eugene Kramer, Cecil John Hackett, William Delano Walker, and Rex Battarbee.