over several years…more to come!
1920 Row Photographer, State Library of Victoria
H4013 Flinders St East and Princes Bridge, H5012 Princes and Queens Bridge, H3785 Queens Bridge and Flinders St West
A modern view will be added by HiddenMelbourne when we are able to access the tower.
over several years…more to come!
ca1867 Several frames captured from the GPO by Charles Nettleton H838, 840,841, 865, 2489, 23929. Missing frame content visible in AC Cooke's lithograph
1867or later Drawn by AC Cooke from Photographs by Charles Nettleton mp001191 State Library of Victoria
These were created as a lithograph and contain buildings not in the photograph, eg. Independent Church, which has been “virtualised” and is in fact much lower than Scots Church
ca1892 George Washington Wilson, with permission from University of Aberdeen Library
1920 Two frames captured by Row from the GPO with a Cirkut camera H3784, H2581
A modern view will be added by HiddenMelbourne when we are able to access the tower.
Click on the magnifying glass to fly to other places.
Click on the “VISIT” tabs to jump onto towers.
Hidden Melbourne historic tour now includes a photographic panorama of Melbourne captured by Walter Woodbury in 1855 from the 195 ft high chimney of the new gasworks, thought to be an Australian first. These were the years of the birth of modern photography. At the age of merely 21 he took his wet-plate camera, tripod, portable darkroom and his chemicals and was hoisted in a ‘proper cradle’ by means of the ‘small steam-engine’ up to the room at the top of the chimney.
An early adoptee of the new Collodion Process, he used a glass plate coated with a collodion (cellulose nitrate) solution to which a soluble iodide was added. Prior to exposure the plate was immersed in a solution of silver nitrate to form silver iodide. The plate, still wet, was exposed in the camera and then had to “fixed” immediately because once the collodion film had dried this could not be done. The panorama required 4 overlapping photographs.
How much easier it is for Hidden Melbourne, using a Sony A7R2 with a CMOS sensor, “developing” the images in Photoshop!!! This highly detailed panorama has been enhanced to show features not visible on the old prints made on silver gelatine paper. Many thanks to the State Library of Victoria for making these images available, and for the sterling job they do to preserve our history.
Read the fascinating story in the LaTrobe Journal linked to this scene and have a detailed look at Melbourne 1855 through an old lens. Click on this image to see the instructions, use the link to see the panorama in detail.
https://www.hiddenmelbourne.com.au/VTNode/1855_Woodbury_Gasworks_Tower