This exhibition presents previously unseen traffic accident photographs taken by police between 1920 and 1964. Recent research on the archive reveals that after the mid-1940s the police approach to photographing accident sites becomes more comprehensive – expanding from one or two shots to a whole series of images. The resulting photographs helped investigators establish the cause of an incident and, if required, were presented in court.

One gallery wall also shows the ways police have been involved in traffic regulation and road safety. The photographs illustrate a range of police activity, from directing traffic at a bustling intersection to teaching children safe road skills. Also included in this selection is the demonstration of New South Wales first radar set, or speed camera, that operated in Sydney from November 1954.

The exhibition opens on Saturday 19 March 2011. Visit the Archive Gallery page for more details.

Caleb Williams, Walter Tuchin and Holly Schulte in the Archive Gallery

Arianne: This exhibition is the first time the museum has focused on the work of a single crime scene photographer, as opposed to a group of them. How did it come about?

Caleb: Holly and I met and conducted a filmed interview with Wal, a still spritely 86 year-old, about 12 months ago, and suggested the idea of an exhibition to him then …  Wal, is one of the few still-living photographers from that era. His insights and stories are invaluable to us, in terms of conveying how this work was done, and the photographs he took are, as you can see, completely remarkable. So the exhibition became an opportunity to explore Wal’s practice as a police photographer and various crime scenes, car crashes and investigations he documented.

Holly: There is something very distinctive about Wal’s photography. His images are well balanced and technically strong, haunting and surreal. When you look at the photographs it is often difficult to see immediately how they relate to crime but that is part of their mystery.

Tuchin's images: Taxi cab damaged after collision with a motor lorry, Parramatta Road, Croydon, 11 Decmber 1954 / Man charged with 12 counts of stealing, Studio, Scientific Investigation Bureau, Sydney, 24 September 1955 / Hands of a strangler, Coogee, 4 November 1953

Arianne: There are 34 photographs in the exhibition …  there are photos of domestic interiors, stolen goods, the aftermaths of fires, and of course bodies in situ. It seems that Wal’s work (as a police photographer) could be both varied and challenging, was that the case?

Holly: Yes, definitely! We tried to highlight the scenes and circumstances Wal would have been confronted with in the course of an average day. He told us of the need to have a loaded camera at the ready, day and night. There was no way to foresee what sort of assignments would come his way. He had to live with unpredictability, each day was a venture into the unknown.

Arianne: I noticed some of the photographs depict very serious subject matter and some are, well, almost ordinary and undramatic and without knowing the full story, you’d be hard pressed to say how they were connected to crime … ?

Caleb: That’s true. Wal was the consummate professional when it came to the craft of photography. Some images seem are grave and tragic, while others are almost humourous, or simply odd.  There are also images that, despite their police context, have the appearance of fine-art photos … We wanted to bring out some of these conjunctions,  particularly in that powerful grouping  of 10 framed photos, against the deep blue wall …

The Tuchin exhibition in the Archive Gallery

Arianne: Ah, yes, I really liked the use of colour in the room …

Caleb: Wall’s approach was pragmatic.  His work was to document ‘evidence’. Whether he was photographing stolen goods dumped on a footpath or the hands of a strangler who’d just confessed to killing his wife, the same careful sense of composition, framing and lighting is applied. Wal cared about the plight of victims. He is a very compassionate man. But for the purposes of collecting evidence for court use, the foulest murder and least important theft seem to be documented and presented with same precision and seriousness.  This accounts for that sometimes surreal quality Holly mentioned earlier, when the images are seen together.

Arianne: It’s a fascinating selection you’ve come up with for this exhibition. Was it hard to connect the stories that lay behind these crime scenes to the photographs you wanted to use in the display?

Holly: It’s always a challenge. But the research part of what we do is fascinating! Our process involved scouring the archive to find every photo Wal  took between 1952-1957. We examined the envelopes these negatives were stored in for notes about each investigation. These notes sometimes lead us on to information in Police Gazettes or to a newspaper article. Occasionally, such as in the case of the Joey Manners shooting (Manners was a well known stand-over man, underworld player and thug) we located a thick murder file that held details of witness statements and the trial proceedings. It usually came down to the type of crime that was photographed, if the perpetrator was caught, and how deeply the press covered the case.

Arianne: It’s a great exhibition, well done guys! One last question: has Wal been in to see it yet?

Caleb: Yes, he dropped in a couple of weeks ago and was both overwhelmed and delighted. He had no idea that when he created these images half a century ago – for a short term functional purpose of documenting crimes and accidents – that they would wind up in the gallery of a public museum.

Holly: Working with Wal to do this show was a wonderful experience for both of us. It gave us both a deeper insight into the human and professional qualities required by those who do this important but difficult work on behalf of the community.

Walter Tuchin in the Archive Gallery

Walter Tuchin in the Archive Gallery

The exhibition will be on display at the museum’s Archive Gallery until 13 Mach 2011.

Storage envelope no. 55/2987 containing 6 cellulose negatives

Ross Gibson’s Crime Scene opened at the museum in late 1999 and was the first exhibition to focus on the archive. Gibson limited his research to negatives dated from the post war period. By this time the New South Wales Police Department had established a special bureau responsible for investigative photography. From the late forties police negatives also became more organised: stored in small brown envelopes, usually noting details of the crime and photographer. Using the envelope names Gibson managed to track down retired members of the Scientific Investigation Bureau and interview them about their working life. During the interviews these ‘scientific men’ spoke about the technical equipment, examination practices and experiences they had in the forties and fifties, a time when forensic investigation was a newly emerging field for the police. This was also the museum’s first encounter with Walter Tuchin.

A decade on, Tuchin’s crime scene photography has returned to the museum. Walter Tuchin: Police Photographer currently showing in the Archive Gallery, is the museum’s first display of the work of a single, still living photographer from the archive. Tuchin worked as a member of the Scientific Investigation Bureau between 1952 and 1957. In the exhibition Tuchin’s crime scene photographs are presented in two formats. Vertical hanging strips, four images apiece, showcasing a variety of investigations, with small textual summaries derived from police and newspaper reports. Ten framed works also present the diverse and unpredictable nature of Tuchin’s daily work. A personal favourite of mine concerns an attempted suicide. The photo is taken from the edge of a cliff, at The Gap in Vaucluse: a giddy, aerial perspective reveals the power of the waves crashing on the jagged rocks below. Tuchin told me he lay down on his belly, while a detective held onto his heels, to take this image. All the while his upper body snaked over the cliff edge to achieve the best angle for the shot. One of many fascinating stories Tuchin shared, not documented in the official police records or news reporting of the event.

Scene of attempted suicide, The Gap, Vaucluse, 22 November 1955.

When I explore these archival photographs I sometimes imagine myself in the photographer’s position, being called to a crime scene with limited idea of what to expect or the particulars of the location. The chance to speak with Tuchin about his work gave me a personal perspective on the images and an understanding of the resourcefulness required when confronted by the random situations that arose. Tuchin’s gentle, warm and light-hearted manner often seems at odds with the difficult nature of the work he completed in the service of the community. I am still challenged to reconcile Tuchin the genial, elderly man, and the Tuchin, whose name appears on the small brown envelopes. But the more I hear, learn and understand of his experience the more deeply I appreciate the archive… not just for the astounding quality of its images but also for the human experience that lay behind them.