[1] Poignant became a citizen of Australia on 8 July 1942 in Perth, and married Ruth Marjorie Pettersen the same month.

[1] His second wife died in 1953, and on 24 October 1953 Poignant married Roslyn Betty Izatt, a film technician, in Sydney.

Not long afterwards, Poignant and Stuart Gore decided to open a studio together in London where they worked on an aerial photographic survey of the Western Australian goldfields.

Photographs of karri logging at Pemberton in 1935, Kalgoorlie mines in 1936, the aerial views of the Duke of Gloucester's arrival in Perth in 1934 and the Anzac Day dawn service in Perth 1939 - all of these images were a fresh view to the public's eye due to Poignant's style and technique, for example his choice of angles.

The following year he took a trip along Canning stock route where he took photographs to review 'marking a change in the portrayal of aborigines'.

Throughout his travels he fostered strong relationships with Aborigines, continuing to capture portraits of these people and their lifestyles.

Poignant used angles as a way of creating his images, for example, shooting from a low point of view and close up to 'appear more natural' than sharp and defined like the earlier ethnographic photography.

[9] In 1986 Poignant's work was shown in Aspects of Post Modernism 1929-1942, which was held at the University of Western Australia in 1986.

Poignant's series of photographs displayed Kalgoorlie, the Canning Stock Route and Central Australia.