SYDNEY LIVING MUSEUMS

Holly Schulte

Curator Digital Assets

Holly Schulte in front of the reprographic digitisation set at the Justice & Police Museum.

Holly is the Curator Digital Assets with Sydney Living Museums where she is part of the Collections & Access team. In this role she is responsible for a range of collection related tasks with a focus on photography, digitisation and digital asset management. Her research interests address photography, collections, image making and associated technology. Holly has worked in the cultural heritage sector since 2002.

Stories by Holly Schulte

A gentleman’s pocket watch, c1816, that once belonged to William Charles Wentworth.

Collection pixels

By digitising our museum and library collections, Sydney Living Museums can interpret and provide access to a rich array of items that offer fascinating insights into our material history.

Four men, possibly Scientific Investigation Bureau staff, seated in office at work typing, examining suspects book, and using drawing board. A selection of busts including anatomical studies and a death mask feature in the room behind them.

The early years of crime scene photography

Alongside thousands of images of suspects, scenes and evidence, the NSW Police Forensic Photography Archive offers rare glimpses of the officers who dedicated themselves to developing the use of...

Vali Myers, Ikon Studio, Martin Place 1950

Vali Myers: teenage Ikon in street photograph

Two young women stride confidently, hand in hand, up Sydney’s Martin Place on a sunny winter’s day in 1950.

Ikon Studio archive finding aid

Ikon Studio archive

The Ikon Studio archive of candid street photography is a documentation of everyday life on one busy Sydney city street recorded over several days in 1950.

Metal lantern slide projector next to electric projector, both with related slides.

Projected across time

In the late 1960s, John Terry, then a young man living at Rouse Hill House, composed avant-garde music which he set to abstract projected images, and performed at various locations in Sydney.

Projector and slides.

1960s psychedelia at Rouse Hill House

In a short experimental period of music making, the talented young John Terry combined radical musical ideas with abstract imagery and the soundscape of Rouse Hill House.

Snapped! The Ikon Studio street photographer at work

A remarkable acquisition of 5000 street snaps provides a lively and revealing record of one Sydney street in 1950 and offers a rare glimpse through the street photographer’s lens.

Black and white photograph of two adults and three children walking in a line holding hands in urban setting. This view is up Martin Place toward Macquarie Street, Sydney.

Ikon Studio

During the public call out for our Street Photography exhibition an extraordinarily rare collection of street photography negatives came to light.

Set of four photos from different angles of metal box with lens and chimney.

Magic Lantern at Rouse Hill House

The Rouse Hill House magic lantern is a mid-19th century example of a form of image projector which dates back to the 17th century.

Black and white negative of woman sitting on chair in garden.

Creating glass plate negatives

Photography practitioners today are rediscovering historical, analogue photography processes.

Dual mugshot of woman seated and standing, with standing shot showing blurred movement.

Photography with slow emulsions

Many of the Special photographs show evidence of long exposur

People standing around camera setup outdoors.

Channelling the police photographer

As part of a workshop with Ellie Young at Gold Street Studios in Trentham, Victoria, I had the opportunity to take my own photographs using dry glass plate negatives.

Lightbox with old negatives sitting on it, with hands holding a negative above.

Captured on glass

It’s almost 100 years since New South Wales police used glass-plate negatives to photograph suspects in custody.

Group of cardboard boxes on table.

The archive’s negatives

The New South Wales Police Forensic Photography Archive contains photographic negatives in several formats and sizes created between around 1910 and 1964. These negatives are both a record of how New...

Closeup of face.

Police photographer George Howard

George B Howard was a prominent police photographer in Sydney during the 1920s, when the use of photography was emerging strongly as an aid to identification and the investigation of crime.