Monthly Archive for April, 2008

This image of the space lab taken at the entrance to the unit was shot with a 17mm lens at f22 and exposed for one second. Using the wide angle lens has emphasised the black around the edge of the lab making the unit appear to be inside a keyhole and almost two dimensional.

The Zero Gravity Space Lab interactive located in our updated Space exhibition plays tricks on your sight and balance to create the illusion of a weightless environment. Narration by Australian astronaut Dr. Andy Thomas and his wife, Dr. Shannon Walker, also an astronaut, the Zero G Lab introduces visitors to how astronauts work on the International Space Station and the value of the research carried out there. Its design is not based upon any particular ISS module, but represents a generic space station laboratory.

File# 00z26252
Photography by Sotha Bourn

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This week we added an additional 50 images to our set on the Commons project on Flickr. We are receiving fantastic contributions from the 200 images we released last week. In our first week we received around 20, 000 views.

The amazing image above is one of the new images added this week. Pyrmont Bridge, Kerry and Co., Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, c.1902-1917. This extremely busy scene almost appears to be set up. The image looks back towards the developed Sydney city business district. The Town Hall is in the upper right side of the image and the dome of the Queen Victoria Building can partially be seen in the upper left side. There is a Bowrey Brother’s vehicle travelling towards the city and a Metropolitan Ice Company Ltd. vehicle heading towards Pyrmont. Waugh’s Pyrmont omnibus service is in the background.

One of the great things about scanning the Tyrrell photographic collection is seeing all the stories within each glass plate negative whilst zooming in to check for sharpness. There is often more going on than what appears at a first glance. Our scanning operator had an interesting time looking at the detail in this image noticing subjects such as the street sweeper standing on the footpath on the right side of the image, the expressions on people’s faces, the names on buildings, the time on the clock tower and the contents of the many boxes and sacks being transported.

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On the seventh of December 1941 the ‘Clyde Engineering Works’, at Granville, Sydney, called the special meeting captured in this photograph. It was taken a little over two weeks after the disappearance of H.M.A.S. Sydney and in this photo we can see the employees being asked to commit 1 shilling a week for 20 weeks to a special fund to replace the sunken vessel.

A documentary on the sinking of H.M.A.S. Sydney will air on ABC1 tonight. More information on this can be found at ABC Television.

Digital print from original glass plate negative, Clyde Engineering Photographic Collection from the Powerhouse Museum Collection.

Blue gums, Kerry and Co, Sydney, Australia, c. 1884-1917. This reproduction from a glass plate negative shows these amazingly large eucalypt trees. The caption calls the trees blue gums but we are wondering if they are river red gums otherwise known as Eucalyptus camaldulensis which are native to inland water ways. These trees play an important part of stabilising the edges of river banks by holding the soil back which can reduce flooding. They are called red gums due to their bright red wood.

This image may have been taken in the Riverina region of New South Wales which is well known for its river red gum trees. The CSIRO has great information on the river red gum. This image is a highlight from our set of images on the Commons project on Flickr.

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Cricket grounds, 1895. This is what a day at the cricket used to look like back in 1895. Infact comments about this image from our set on the Commons project on Flickr reveal that this match was the Fourth Test of the 1894/5 Ashes Tour and the date must be from February 4th. You can see the scoreboard from this match at Cricinfo.

There are no inscriptions on the negative which would inform us of whether it came from the Charles Kerry or the Henry King studio.

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