Gurindji country at Wattie Creek. This photograph has been seen as capturing "the symbolic birth of landrights". He returned to the Herald in 1979, before becoming a freelance photographer in 1986, working for such agencies as the National Geographic Society. Bishop completed further studies and lectured in photography at Tranby Aboriginal College, the Eora College and at the Tin Sheds Gallery at the University of Sydney. In 1991 he had his first solo exhibition, In Dreams: Mervyn, Thirty Years of Photography 1960 to 1990, at the Australian Centre for Photography. Originally curated by Tracey Moffatt, it went on to tour for over 10 years. A book titled In Dreams was published to accompany the exhibition. He produced a one-man performance piece, Flash Blak, in the vein of a William Yang slide show to music and written and directed by Yang, for the 2004 Message Sticks Festival at the Sydney Opera House. His aim in the show was to delve "into his family's history to illuminate a wider story about Aboriginal life in the latter half of the 20th century". He also worked as a stills photographer on Phillip Noyce's Rabbit-Proof Fence. Exhibitions and collections Bishop's work was included in Candid Camera: Australian Photography 1950s–1970s at the Art Gallery of South Australia (May to August 2010), a group retrospective of social documentary photography which also featured the work of key Australian photographers Max Dupain, David Moore, Jeff Carter, Robert McFarlane, Rennie Ellis, Carol Jerrems and Roger Scott. A number of Bishop's photographs are held in the permanent collection of the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the National Gallery of Australia. Awards 1971: He won the Nikon-Walkley Australian Press Photographer of the Year for Life and Death Dash, a photograph, which had appeared on the front page of the Herald in January 1971, depicting a nun rushing to get help for an Aboriginal child. 2000: He was awarded the Australia Council's $50,000 Red Ochre Award, through its Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Arts Board. Other recognition Bishop features in "Through the Eyes of Lens with Merv Bishop", an episode in the 2013 documentary television series Desperate Measures. Personal life His wife, Elizabeth, died of cancer in 1991, and he was left to care for their teenage son, Tim, and six-year-old daughter, Rosemary. Solo and group exhibitions 1991, In Dreams: Mervyn Bishop Thirty Years of Photography 1960–1990, Australian Centre for Photography,