John Williams grew up on the land near Moree and the region has informed much of his photographic practice. In 2001 Williams produced Attitudes, a series of portraits showing well-known Moree personalities. Some of the family names of the Kamilaroi sitters are familiar to us from Michael Riley’s A common place series. William’s portraits show the subjects in their typical surrounds, in sitting rooms, on the front veranda, or on the back steps. It is as if the photographer had just walked into his sitter’s house and immediately taken a single photograph.

Each of the 16 photographs is accompanied by a short autobiography, responding largely to the sitters’ experiences of inter-racial relationships and attitudes in Moree. For this series, Williams focused on people who had lived through important milestones for the town, including the decline of the wool industry, the strict curfews imposed on Aboriginal people and the 1965 Freedom Rides. Their stories evoke memories of a different time yet highlight social issues still faced in many rural towns today.

Exhibited in Moree in 2016, Attitudes now graces the gallery walls once again in Attitudes Revisited.