Mr Anon Shoots Good Ole Sydney

 21st December, 2010

A bloke with a snazzy hat, two wooden posts and a well pouched mate 

With distant parallels to Vivian Maier and John Maloof all the way over in Chicago, comes the story of a car boot sale and its unexpected windfall from Narrabeen High School on Sydney’s northern beaches. 

Just another Saturday arvo in the burbs 

Local photo journalist John Grainger was out doing a wee bit of bric-a-brac shopping when he stumbled upon a tatty box housing 14 rustic rolls of processed negatives – over 200 images revealing Australian life from the 1940s & 50s taken by an anonymous snapper … the only clue to his identity, a single, slightly off focus self portrait taken into a distant mirror.  


Mr Anon

Being a photographer himself and with an old school ability to hold negs up to the light, Grainger immediately grasped the nostalgic worth of the booty.

The famous Sydney amphibious tram - seen here in two minds

And equally, being a photographer himself, Grainger haggled like a hard working foot soldier on a basic wage. The boot salesman crumbled, settling for a fiver and the chuffed pressy rushed home to scan Mr Anon’s entire historically pertinent portfolio – acknowledging later that, “it would be good to find the family who owns them”.  

Bronzed Aussies in antique sluggers.

A News Limited led search has been unfurled in the week before Christmas …