Secret images of our Diggers at war

A COLLECTION of 151 candid World War I photographs taken by Australian Diggers will be displayed for the first time in 80 years at the NSW State Library this week.

German prisoners march in gas masks. Supplied: State Library of NSW

A COLLECTION of 151 candid World War I photographs by Australian Diggers will be displayed for the first time in 80 years at the NSW State Library this week.

Photos in the Colour of Darkness exhibition were taken at Egypt, Gallipoli and the Somme, where cameras were officially banned. It was the first war photographed by soldiers on the ground.

Though the identity of soldier-photographers, and their subjects, are unknown, the exhibition includes work by Australian war photographer Frank Hurley. The photos were likely taken on compact Kodak-brand vest pocket cameras, sold from 1915 to 1926 and marketed as the “Soldier’s camera”.

Curator Elise Edmonds says the cameras folded flat, with a pullout spring-loaded lens, and were likely bought before soldiers left home to take images of their “great adventure”. “Photography by soldiers was banned on the Western Front, but the rule was widely ignored and easily disregarded,” Edmonds says.

A party of leave breakers, including a nurse, meet in Cologne in 1918, which was strictly out of bounds for Australian troops. Supplied: State Library of NSW

Soldiers march in Ypres in 1917. Supplied: State Library of NSW

Loading camels at a railhead in Palestine. Supplied: State Library of NSW

Watering Horses at Elisha’s Fountain near the Walls of ancient Jericho. Supplied: State Library of NSW

A Light Horse camp at Belah Pools, an oasis below Jaffa in Palestine. Supplied: State Library of NSW

The Light Horse returing to the coast of Phoenicia. Supplied: State Library of NSW

A remarkable crash into a French farmhouse. Supplied: State Library of NSW

French children on the Western Front celebrate the Armistice. Supplied: State Library of NSW

Column on the march approaching the Dead Sea. Supplied: State Library of NSW

Australian troops gather at the base of a pyramid in Egypt. Supplied: State Library of NSW