Mrs Iris Daphne Dicks (nee Bishop) was born at Moonta, South Australia on 30 June 1913. She married Walter Dicks, who was born in 1904 in England and later emigrated to Australia. After their marriage, Wally was employed by the Commonwealth Railways as a ganger on the East-West Line, and Wally and Iris lived at Ooldea Siding on the South Australian Nullarbor Plain from 1937 to 1949. During that period Iris had considerable contact with the Aboriginal people who frequented the siding. Iris and Wally also became close friends with Harrie Green, the Superintendent of the United Aborigines’ Mission station at Ooldea Soak, and his wife, Marion, and they frequently assisted the Greens at the mission, a few kilometres north of the siding. The Dicks had one child, a daughter, Beverley, who was born at the hospital at Cook Siding, further west along the East-West line.

After leaving Ooldea in 1949 the Dicks lived for some time in Victor Harbor until Wally got a job at the Woomera Rocket Range. Later, in the 1950s, the Dicks moved to Fowlers Bay, on South Australia's far west coast, where Wally worked for the Highways Department. He was later transferred to Port Augusta, where they lived after Wally's retirement. Wally died on 14 April 1988 and Iris died on 4 November 2001, aged 88 years.

The Iris Dicks Collection consists of an album of 97 black and white photographs, and related documentation and correspondence. The majority of the photographs were taken at Ooldea Siding and Ooldea Soak between 1937 and 1949; the others were taken later in the 1950s at Yalata Aboriginal Reserve and in the Penong-Fowlers Bay area.