From triumph to terror: pictures capture a new millennium
The image of Hanabeth Luke’s selfless help to an injured Tom Singer became etched on our memories in this challenging decade, along with moments of Olympic glory, a fire truck dwarfed by furious flames and Schapelle Corby facing Indonesian justice.
The Australian is turning 60 and we invite you to celebrate with us. Today we look at the 2000s through the lens of photography. See the full series here.
It’s the beginning of a new millennium and the Y2K bug has just fizzled. Again technology has advanced photography and the press industry has well and truly embraced digital cameras. Digital photography would prove to be a powerful tool for Australian news organisations in the year 2000 when Sydney hosts the Olympic Games. I was fortunate enough to spend months travelling with the Olympic torch relay as a member of the News Limited media team. This was a far cry from sending and receiving pictures in the old analog gram-room. Our team of photographers and support crew were able to photograph every torch runner, transmit the pictures by mobile satellite devices and publish the pictures by day’s end. It was a truly joyous and proud experience for everyone involved. That magical Olympic flame lit up every town it visited. How wonderful it was when almost every Australian was at the edge of their seat to see Cathy Freeman win the 400m and our photographers were there to capture every angle before, during and after.
In the space of a year, the world witnessed a horrible new day of infamy. Late on an ordinary Tuesday night in Australia, news was coming in of a plane crash in New York. Then another. And now in Washington. Editors, reporters and production staff were summoned back to the office to work on special editions of The Australian to cover what became known as 9/11 and the beginning of the war on terror. In one of the world’s most densely populated cities, bystanders and press photographers alike pointed their cameras at this tragedy. Planes crashing, buildings burning, men and women falling to their deaths. As intended by the perpetrators, the images were terrifying and are etched in our memories forever.
This new decade for a new millennium was extraordinarily challenging for Australians and these pictures speak to that. Hanabeth Luke’s selfless help to an injured Tom Singer, a fire truck dwarfed as it escapes furious flames, mobs of teenagers looking for targets for their anger in suburban Sydney, Schapelle Corby facing the Indonesian legal system. All seen through our photographers’ lenses.
April 2003
US Marines pull down the statue of defeated Iraq leader Saddam Hussein in Baghdad on April 9.
September 2000
Cathy Freeman focuses before winning gold and fulfilling the hopes of a nation in the 400m at the Sydney Olympic Games. Picture: David Caird
May 2005
Schapelle Corby bursts into tears in a Denpasar courtroom as she is sentenced to 20 years’ jail for importing marijuana into Indonesia’s island of Bali. Picture: Dimas Ardian/Getty
October 2002
Hanabeth Luke, 22, helps Tom Singer, 17, after the terror attack on Sari nightclub in Bali. Tom died four weeks later from his injuries. Picture: Roberto Maldonado
September 2009
A dust storm from outback NSW envelopes Sydney, leaving Balmain’s Ariella, 6, and sister Romy, 3, to play in its eerie orange glow. Picture: Dan Peled/AAP
May 2006
Todd Russell, left, and Brant Webb emerge after 14 days trapped in Tasmania’s Beaconsfield gold mine. Larry Knight was killed. Picture: Ian Waldie/Getty
February 2008
Prime minister Kevin Rudd greets Indigenous leader Lowitja O’Donoghue at Parliament House before his formal apology to the Stolen Generations. Picture: Alan Porritt/AAP
February 2009
A giant ball of smoke and flames towers over a fire truck on Black Saturday in Labertouche, Victoria. The most deadly fires since colonisation killed 173. Picture: Alex Coppel
August 2001
433 rescued asylum seekers on the deck of the Norwegian cargo ship MV Tampa off Christmas Island after the Howard government rejected permission to land. Picture: Wallenius Wilhelmsen
December 2005
An angry mob attacks men of Middle Eastern appearance on a train following the race-based riots at Cronulla beach. Picture: Craig Greenhill
