Bill Henson was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1955 and some think him to be one of Australia's leading contemporary artists. You can see a large selection of his pictures at the Roslyn Oxley9 Gallery. In 2005 he had a major retrospective, Bill Henson, Three Decades of Photography, shown at the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney as well as the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, and his work is on show at the Robert Miller gallery in New York from April 27 until June 3, 2006.

At first glance I found his work as seen on the web of little interest, but the feature on him in Pavement Magazine gives an excellent presentation which makes me look at it rather more seriously. As the feature says, his work has proved controversial, with those who think he is Australia's greatest photographer and others who criticise his work in strong terms, sometimes for its subject matter - some of his work deals with adolescent sexuality - and also for his techniques. The people in his pictures often merge into darkness and things are seldom clear and straightforward. However, this is obviously both deliberate and controlled; he sees it as his aim to ask questions rather than to answer them in his pictures. He shoots on negative film and often prints You can also read more in a sometimes intriguing interview with him in Ego.