Fit to Print: Exhibition themes
Picturing the news
By the 1890s developments in photography allowed photographers to purchase negative plates in advance and develop them days or even weeks after they were exposed. Photographers such as George Bell and Herbert Fishwick took to the streets and the countryside, hauling unwieldy cameras and heavy glass-plate negatives around with them.
Early photojournalists understood the ability of a photograph to tell a story. They knew that subjects and props could be carefully arranged to make a good image great. While staging or intervention is largely avoided by photojournalists now, for those working in the early twentieth century the ability to manipulate a scene was essential.

Fairfax Corporation, Group of colliers at the Lithgow Vale Colliery, New South Wales, 21 December 1932, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-157885780
Fairfax Corporation, Group of colliers at the Lithgow Vale Colliery, New South Wales, 21 December 1932, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-157885780
People
Whether it's politicians on the campaign trail, underworld crime bosses, visiting celebrities, sports stars or children playing in the street, the people that newspaper photographers choose to capture, and the images that editors choose to publish, offer us insights into Australian society and identity.
The photographs in the Fairfax Archive reflect the changes in newspaper audiences that occurred in the early twentieth century. In the 1920s newspapers began to market themselves for women, using sections such as The Sydney Morning Herald’s Women’s Supplement, which contained photographs of women engaged in work, housekeeping and social activities.

Fairfax Corporation, Man sitting on an out of order escalator reading a newspaper, Sydney, ca. 1920s, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163365935
Fairfax Corporation, Man sitting on an out of order escalator reading a newspaper, Sydney, ca. 1920s, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163365935
Bridges, boats and beaches
For photojournalists working in a coastal city, the beaches and harbours were spaces where people congregated, and thus where news could be gathered. Since ships were still the most efficient form of interstate and international travel in the first decades of the twentieth century, photographers at the harbour were in prime position to capture images of arriving dignitaries and celebrities from other parts of Australia and beyond.
Photojournalists also documented Sydney’s changing cityscape, and one construction project of the 1920s overshadowed all others. In 1923 work began on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and the various stages of its construction over the next 10 years feature prominently in the Fairfax Archive.

Fairfax Corporation, Construction workers tightening the bolts on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, ca. 1931, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-16021958
Fairfax Corporation, Construction workers tightening the bolts on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Sydney, ca. 1931, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-16021958
Australian life
By the 1930s photographs had become a mainstay of newspapers. Some publications, such as The Sun News-Pictorial, embraced them so completely that they sometimes took up the whole front page. The Sydney Morning Herald had more than half a dozen photographers on staff.
Australians were becoming increasingly familiar with the visual vocabulary that we associate with modern photojournalism. Eye-level portraits to evoke empathy. Low-angle photographs to inspire awe. Movement to simulate drama, and stillness to elicit calm. For a photograph to be fit to print, it needed to match the reality the photographer was trying to convey.

Herbert H. Fishwick & Fairfax Corporation, Man sewing up a sack of wheat during the harvest at Cudmore's Property, Tamworth, New South Wales, 1933, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163303133
Herbert H. Fishwick & Fairfax Corporation, Man sewing up a sack of wheat during the harvest at Cudmore's Property, Tamworth, New South Wales, 1933, nla.gov.au/nla.obj-163303133
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