The best Herald Sun news pictures of the past 30 years

They capture moments of grief, joy, pain and terror — they are the Herald Sun photos telling the iconic stories from Victoria and around the world in a single frame. Take a look back at some of our best photography of the past 30 years.

A frail resident being removed from the St Basils nursing home in Melbourne’s north after the facility was overwhelmed with coronavirus cases speaks to the scale of the disaster in aged care. Picture: Jason Edwards

They’re the images which document, and often define, the important moments in our history; capturing grief, joy, pain and terror.

Above all, the pictures of Herald Sun photographers are a testament to truth; summing up in a single frame, the news of the day.

The words of reporters are sometimes rendered redundant, when the photo tells the story.

For three decades, Herald Sun photographs have done just that.

Here are some of the best of them.

Shortly after taking this picture of a wall of fire bearing down on a CFA crew in Labertouche during the 2009 Black Saturday fires, photographer Alex Coppel came under ember attack himself and had to escape to safety. About 400 blazes were recorded across Victoria and 173 people tragically lost their lives. More than 2000 homes were lost.

The practice of police using ‘pressure point’ tactics on members of the public was banned as a result of this powerful photo by Peter Ward, capturing the method being used on a demonstrator at an East Melbourne anti-logging protest in 1994.

The image of the body of crime patriarch Lewis Moran lying on the floor inside the Brunswick Club Hotel - where he was gunned down on March 31, 2004 - summed up the brazen brutality of Melbourne’s gangland war, which had already claimed the lives of multiple members of Melbourne’s underworld.

Peter Ristevski’s photograph of a horse stuck in mud near Geelong, as its owner Nicole Graham worked frantically alongside CFA and SES crews to save it, showed the power of teamwork and inspired people the world over. Graham stayed by her horse’s side for three hours before he was finally freed, just minutes before the tide came in.

The media scrum surrounding Cardinal George Pell as he arrived at Melbourne Magistrates Court in July 2017 for a filing hearing on historical sexual assault charges was the biggest Herald Sun photographer Mark Stewart had ever seen, and marked the start of one of the biggest chapters in the history of the Catholic Church in Australia. To get a clear view of the Pell, Stewart “took a gamble” and raced ahead of the pack to an elevated position, where he could “shoot down” and see Pell’s face.

The brutal stalking, rape and murder of young Melbourne comedian Eurydice Dixon, 22, in a Melbourne park in June 2018 - as she walked home from a performance - shocked the country. An estimated 10,000 mourners braved the cold to attend a candlelight vigil at Princes Park, where her body was found. Jaymes Todd, 20, was sentenced to at least 35 years in jail for Ms Dixon’s death.

The chilling Melbourne CBD scene of crazed Bourke St killer Dimitrious Gargasoulas terrifying pedestrians in a maroon Holden Commodore on January 20, 2017 is sadly now seared into the brains of many Victorians. Gargasoulas was sentenced to a minimum of 46 years in prison for the murder of six people, killed when he mowed them down in a massacre on Bourke St.

Bus driver Jack Aston was sentenced to more than five years jail - with a minimum of Two-and-a-half to serve - for crashing into the famously low Montague St bridge in South Melbourne in February 2016, causing serious injuries to six passengers. Photographer Ian Currie was on the scene and captured the horror. Aston’s prison sentence became the subject of intense debate, with many arguing it was too harsh. He was freed on appeal, after 306 days in jail.

Mike Keating’s 2008 image of a bouncer from King Street’s Bar 20 kicking a man on the street at 4.30am on a Sunday morning added fuel to the Victorian government’s argument at the time for a 2am nightclub lockout, which was due to start the very next day.

No image better captured Prime Minister John Howard’s commitment to overhauling Australia’s gun laws in the wake of the Port Arthur Massacre than this 1996 photo of him wearing a bulletproof vest under his suit, as he addressed a hostile pro-gun rally in rural Sale. The strict gun laws he pushed through in Australia became some of the toughest in the world.

Australians watched on for an agonising two weeks in 2006 as rescuers fought to save the lives of Tasmanian miners Todd Russell and Brant Webb, trapped almost one kilometre underground at Beaconsfield. The photo of the two men finally emerging from the mine - beaming and waving - had people across the country crying with relief and joy.

As the granddaughter of a World War II fighter pilot and daughter of a Qantas pilot, Holly Smith only ever wanted to fly but the 19 year-old cadet’s dreams were tragically cut short when her Cesna 172 plane collided with an identical plane over Moorabbin Airport on July 30, 2002. An instructor and another trainee pilot miraculously escaped the exploding wreckage. This photo at the crash site captured the raw grief of Holly’s death.

Sometimes photographers are just in the right place at the right time (or wrong time) to capture incredible images. That was the case with this amazing photo by Jason Sammon taken in 2013, of a man on a motorbike crashing into, and being flung over, a taxi on Station St Frankston, after attempting to avoid police wishing to pull him over. He later walked to an awaiting ambulance.

A Gippsland farmer’s sense of complete hopelessness in the face of an unforgiving drought in 2017 is captured here by photographer Jake Nowakowski. Farmer Dan Boland wiping dirt from his eyes after strong winds whipped up a dust storm at his property in Darriman, expertly illustrated the devastation of the drought and highlighted the barren landscape.

It was the day “Australia lost its innocence” as 35 people were shot dead, and another 23 injured by gunman Martin Bryant in the horrific Port Arthur massacre. The shooting rampage at the popular Tasmanian tourist spot, shocked the nation and prompted an overhaul of gun laws. The image of victims being transported to Hobart by helicopter captured a small part of the carnage in April 1996.

It was the image that for many defined one of the most shocking days in Sydney’s history. This Lindt Cafe worker could not race into the arms of the heavily armed policeman fast enough in her dash for freedom after being kept hostage by deranged gunman Man Horan Monis inside the Sydney CBD cafe. The photo of her in tears as she held onto the police officer was splashed across the front pages of leading newspapers in Britain and the US.

Jay Town’s extraordinary photo of deer on a farm in Gisborne South huddling together in fear - as fire rages behind them - on February 9, 2014, was taken just moments before water bombing aircraft doused the flames and saved the animals.

The heartbreaking David Caird image of a school student kissing the white coffin of her murdered friend, Melbourne teenager Masa Vukotic, captured the utter tragedy of her senseless death. Masa, 17, was stabbed to death on March 17, 2015, near her Doncaster home. Her killer Sean Price is serving a life sentence with a minimum non-parole period of 38-years for the horrific random attack.

Judy Moran, the mother of slain Melbourne underworld figure Jason Moran, weeps as she mourns the death of her son, who was gunned down alongside Pat (Pasquale) Barbaro in a van parked at the Cross Keys Hotel in Essendon. Barbaro and Moran were murdered on June 21, 2003 after watching Moran’s young children play football.

The picture of a barefoot Hannabeth Luke helping injured fellow Australian Tom Singer from the carnage of Bali’s Sari Club after a bomb ripped through the popular nightspot captured terrorism on Australia’s doorstep. The co-ordinated terror attacks on October 12, 2002 killed 202 people, including 88 Australians, and injured scores more.

Thousands of people joined a peace march in Sydney Rd Brunswick a week after the brutal September 2012 murder of Jill Meagher, to show strength and resilience in the face of senseless violence. Jill Meagher, 29, was walking home from an inner-city Brunswick bar when she was raped, murdered and buried in a shallow grave. Her killer, Adrian Bayley, was sentenced to life in prison. At least 10,000 people turned out in a peaceful demonstration against violence against women, some holding signs, but not chanting or yelling.

It was the terror event which changed the world. The fear and horror on the faces of New Yorkers running from the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 after catastrophic plane attacks, summed up that of people around America and the world as they grappled to comprehend the scale of the co-ordinated terrorist attacks by al-Qaeda

Eleven passengers died and 23 were injured when a B-double truck crashed into the side of a Swan Hill train bound for Melbourne on June 5, 2007. The second carriage of the train was ripped apart by the impact and the third carriage derailed, making it one of the worst train wrecks ever in Victoria. This photo of a body being removed by emergency services workers shows the horror which greeted those at the scene. The truck driver was later found not guilty of culpable driving charges and a coroner’s inquiry led to a series of recommendations to improve the safety of trains, trucks and level crossings.

A fire ripped through Coode Island in Melbourne’s west in August 1991 sparking a major emergency after a 600,000 litre chemical storage tank exploded. The fire caused by the explosion burned other chemicals stored in tanks on the island and formed clouds of black smoke seen up to 30km away. Nearby Footscray Primary School, buildings and even ships were evacuated with an exclusion zone put in place. It took 155 firefighters three hours to bring the blaze under control. Two were injured in the process. The day after the blaze was brought under control a ruptured pipeline caused an explosion in another storage tank that produced a fireball which spread to other storage tanks.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had to be bundled out of a Canbera restaurant by security service agents on January 26, 2012 after it was surrounded by furious Aboriginal rights protesters. The protest was sparked by comments made by then opposition leader Tony Abbott - who was also surrounded - about “moving on’’ an Aboriginal tent embassy, celebrating its 40th anniversary. Debate has raged since, over whether Australia Day should continue to be held on January 26, a date which commemorates the landing of the First Fleet at Sydney Cove and seen by some as an invasion of Aboriginal land, or scrapped or moved.

Collingwood star Darren Millane’s jumper draped over his coffin at his packed funeral in 1991 is an image most Pies fans, alive at the time, will never forget. Killed in a drunken car smash at the height of his football career, Millane’s car ran into the back of a truck on Queens Road, Albert Park in October 1991. His blood alcohol content was 0.322, more than six times the legal limit. Millane, the man frequently touted as Collingwood’s next captain and seemingly indestructible at the time, had been cut down in his prime, at just 26.

Students protesting federal budget cuts to higher education clashed with police as thousands of protesters marched through CBDs across the country on May 21, 2014. The rallies were part of a national day of action against the Government’s plan to deregulate university fees, and organised by the National Union of Students (NUS). Almost 2000 people marched from Melbourne’s State Library to Parliament House on Spring Street chanting, “No ifs, no buts, no education cuts”. There were arrests after small group refused to leave the protest area.

This raw photo taken by Craig Borrow in February 1999 picturing a baby boy looking on as his mother shoots up with heroin just 150 metres from a police station in Footscray demonstrated a new low in Melbourne’s deadly and dirty drug scourge. Debates over the need for safe drug injecting rooms have raged in the years since.

The miraculous 1997 rescue of young ski instructor Stuart Diver at Thredbo, after being trapped under rubble for 64 hours following a deadly landslide, inspired a nation. Showing extraordinary resilience and mental and physical tenacity, Diver survived while those around him perished, including his beloved wife, Sally and 17 others. Diver found love again with his second wife Rosanna, who was also mother to his daughter Alessia. Sadly, however, Rosanna was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after they returned from their honeymoon and Stuart cared for her until she died from metastatic breast cancer in 2015.

The 1997 death of toddler Jaidyn Leskie in Moe has mystified Australians for decades. The 14 month-old disappeared from his Moe home in June 1997 while he was being babysat by his mother Bilynda Williams’ boyfriend, unemployed mechanic Greg Domaszewicz. The toddler’s tiny, battered body was found six months later, weighted with a crowbar in the freezing waters of Blue Rock dam. Babysitter Mr Domaszewicz was charged but pleaded not guilty to murder, and walked free after a jury acquitted him. He has always maintained innocence, claiming all he did was leave Jaidyn home alone while he drove to pick up Bilynda. Greg Domaszewicz is pictured here being led into court to stand trial.

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* To mark the Herald Sun’s 30th birthday milestone, over the next 30 days we will celebrate all that makes Victoria and Melbourne great. Starting with the fantastic souvenir poster by cartoonist Mark Knight our coverage will include the state’s 30 most influential people of the past 30 years, greatest sporting moments, and best photos. To get your Mark Knight cartoon pick up a copy of the Thursday Herald Sun or find it in the Herald Sun Shop online store. Subscribers can also purchase a limited edition print at heraldsun.com.au/rewards.