City Of Shadows Sydney Police Photographs 1912 1948

Description

In the late 1980s a vast collection of forensic crime photography, created by the New South Wales Police between 1912 and 1960, was rescued by the Historic Houses Trust from a flooded warehouse. This book draws on Peter Doyles extensive research into these fascinating and often eerily beautiful images of everyday misadventure in Sydney between 1912 and 1948. Reproduced here to stunning effect, the reader is struck by the power of the photographs to transcend their provenance in police investigation and crime scene recording, to offer breathtaking historical revelation, and to come alive in their own right.

Author description

Caleb Williams is Curator at the Justice and Police Museum in Sydney. Peter Doyle is a novelist, scholar and occasional curator at the same institution.

Table of contents

Foreword by Peter Watts; The Forensic Eye: Photography's Dark Mirror by Caleb Williams; Gathering Evidence by Peter Doyle; Persons of Interest by Peter Doyle; Spirits Awake: Encountering the Archive by Caleb Williams.