Those daring young photographers
These images were taken on 15 January 1932 to mark the laying of the last piece of stone on the northern pylon of the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The images the first photographer took earlier in the day, from near the camera bag, only capture the sides and backs of the people involved.
His final image, showing the officials watching the laying of the stone, seems unremarkable until you realise the lengths (or should that be heights) he went to in search of the right shot.
Richard Raxworthy in his biography of JJC Bradfield suggests that the photographer is Robert Arthur Bowden (1886-1971), the photographer from the Department of Public Works (An Unreasonable Man, p.123-4).
Certainly Bradfield employed Bowden to take photographs during the building of the Bridge. When the photographic section of the Public Works Department was shut down, Bowden moved to the Government Printing Office on 1 September 1929 (NSW Govt Gazette 6/09/1929, p.3757). Bowden resigned from the Government Printing Office on 5 July 1930 (NSW Govt Gazette 31/01/1930, p.529).
His son Ernest told us in 2014 that Robert was unemployed for nine months and then joined the Metropolitan Water Sewerage and Sanitation Board as a photographer, presumably about April 1931. Most likely after 1929 Bradfield employed Bowden separately from his official job.
Ernest also told us that Bowden had two assistants in the job of recording the Bridge, although not at the same time and we do not know in what order: Wilfred Charles "Bill" Brindle (c1908-1984) and Frederick "Fred" Degotardi (1890-1953).
Brindle went on to work for the Australian Womens Weekly in the early 1940s and for the Australian News and Information Bureau by 1954.
Degotardi joined the NSW Government Printing Office as a temporary outdoor operator on 28 November 1927, was made a permanent employee on 1 February 1936 and retired on 3 May 1950.
In late 1932 he was paid 25 pounds "height money" for photographic work on Sydney Harbour Bridge.
So who was this photographer?
Robert Arthur Bowden, Bill Brindle, Fred Degotardi or someone else?
Do you recognise the camera bag, coat or the posture of the first photographer? And where was the second photographer perched to take that image of the first photographer?
Many thanks to Sylvia Raye who was instrumental in 2014 in putting us in touch with the late Ernest Bowden, who died in 2017 aged 105
See more photos of setting the last block of granite in Collection Search »