Coast scene, Mordialloc Creek, near Cheltenham c.

1871 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (PH329-1979)

Introduction
Nineteenth-century photographs can present us with a dilemma. Showing us historically distant places and people, the images often lack context, leaving them mute and inaccessible. However, some early photographs are different. Operating from distinct aesthetic and cultural spaces, these images actively fracture their temporal constraints. Through the creative talents of the photographer; the inherent interest of the subject matter; an animating context; or simply an ineffable visual hook, such works operate in a space simultaneously of the past and the present, while elucidating both.1 One photograph by Fred Kruger (18311888) that illustrates the capacity of the past to meet the present is Coast scene, Mordialloc Creek, near Cheltenham. The image seems simple enough; on the surface, at least, it is typical of the nineteenth-century commercial photographic trade, which saw the Australian landscape categorised into generic scenic sights or views. Krugers photograph shows Mordialloc Creek in Cheltenham, a bayside suburb of Melbourne. Originally a camping ground for the Bunurong people, by the 1880s this site was popular with colonial daytrippers, who travelled the 25 kilometres from the city by horse and buggy or, from 1881 onwards, on the new train line to picnic, fish or sit on the shores of the bay. Kruger took this image from the second storey of the nearby Bridge Hotel, which was finished in 1871. He enjoyed taking photographs from elevated perspectives, as they gave him a pronounced depth of field and allowed him to create a highly distinctive arrangement of figures in the landscape. Much has changed in this area since the nineteenth century. The Bridge Hotel still operates, but it is now part of a shopping strip. Underground drains feed urban pollutants into the creek and hordes of cars rush by, largely oblivious to the view. Despite the changes, the area remains a favourite place to fish and boat and, in keeping with its early history as a holiday site, it still retains something of the sense of a boundary between city and country. However, what is fascinating about Krugers photograph is not so much its location as its unusual sense of narrative. Kruger was a photographer who revelled in details: smallscale happenings or groupings of people that act to humanise and animate a landscape. Even in the grandest and most sweeping of his images, his interests were invariably drawn

to intimate, low-key events. In other photographers hands, people would be included as staffage, offering scale and humanising the landscape. In contrast, Krugers groupings are so varied and persistent that people are less accessories than active participants in particularised landscapes. In Coast scene, Mordialloc Creek, near Cheltenham, the addition of bystanders is especially rich and animates the scene. Among those present are a group of men and to modern eyes formally dressed women, most of whom are holding long fishing poles. A man in a suit passes a bottle of beer to a casually dressed fisherman, while a freshly caught shark, somewhat obscured in the foreground, lies almost at their feet. Although probably posed, aspects of the image have a spontaneous quality: in the boat in the foreground of the photograph, for instance, a small dogs overexcited movements have turned him into a blur. On closer inspection, Krugers photograph reveals one strange element: the faces of the assembled crowd were scratched out on the photographers glass plate before printing. It is hard to say why the photographer (or his printer) chose to deface the people in this apparently innocuous scene. Did someone object to having their photograph taken? Or was there a relationship that, in retrospect, Kruger felt he needed to obscure? On another occasion, Kruger deleted the face of a child (possibly his son) on the plate, so perhaps the coast scene showed family members who wanted to remain anonymous.2 It seems that the glass plate was scratched some time after it was made, as a print of the photograph exists without the defacement.3 Whatever the reasons, the effect of this act is to turn Krugers precise gathering of visual information into an enigmatic, even surreal, picture. It seems unlikely that a commercial photographer with a family to support could regularly construct strange whimsies such as Coast scene, Mordialloc Creek. The main purpose of Krugers profession was to create picturesque images of Victorias landscapes for sale to locals and visitors to hang on their walls or place in albums. It was perhaps for this reason that Kruger overcame the apparent problems within the image by producing an alternate version, comprising an enlarged section of the background (p. 2).4 Kruger was a commercial photographer, but this is not to diminish the complexity and creativity of his practice. At a

Sustaining health and prosperity

Australian waterways were not only places of recreation; the supply of clean water was also vital to the health and wellbeing of settlers. Historian Tim Bonyhady has argued that environmental awareness began in 1788 with laws enacted to protect drinking water.18 It was, however, hard to maintain water cleanliness and after only a few years of colonial settlement in Melbourne the Yarra River had become fouled: sewage, industrial wastes, drain water and animal products from abattoirs and tanneries all flowed freely into it, and regular floods exacerbated the situation.19 As the Yarra was the main source of drinking water at the time, the public health consequences were dire. Three typhoid epidemics occurred in

View on the Moorabool River, near viaduct c.1880 National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne (PH244-1979)

the early 1840s that claimed up to twenty lives each week and waterborne diseases such as dysentery, diphtheria and scarlet fever killed many others. Krugers photographs present an untroubled view of waterways even when the reality was not always idyllic. The seemingly untouched Barwon River falls that he photographed were, for instance, the subject of discussion at the Newtown and Chilwell Borough Council in the early 1880s. Council determined to write to the proprietors of the Barwon Paper Mills, which had begun production in 1878, requesting that they prevent the water being polluted by offensive matter flowing into it from the paper mills, and so conserve the health of the public.20

Shire of Whittlesea views c.1877, printed c.2000 City of Whittlesea Cultural Collection, Whittlesea

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Mr Kruger, the landscape photographer

Mr Kruger, the landscape photographer

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