Digital image library and store, online bookstore and home of Greg Ray’s blogs| www.phototimetunnel.com
In old children’s books I used to read how oranges were once a favourite Christmas present. I guess that was in the northern hemisphere, in the colder countries where a juicy orange would have been a rare and welcome ambassador from the sunny south. That image struck me again on recent visit to Sweden where, […]| Photo Time Tunnel
In the later years of the 19th century science enthusiasts all over the world were captivated by the mysteries and possibilities of electricity and magnetism. Few imagined, I suppose, that their experiments with batteries, magnetos and other pieces of equipment were steps on a path that would soon lead humans to discover how to tear […]| Photo Time Tunnel
I learn from Australia’s ABC public news network that the nation’s new Federal Police boss, Commissioner Krissy Barrett, reckons tougher laws on hate crime might be needed. The suggestion is that the police need extra powers to be able to nip hate crime and terrorism in the bud, before it even manifests. Frankly, this kind […]| Photo Time Tunnel
I may be wrong about this but it seems to me that, when I was younger, the world’s craziness was delivered in smaller doses. You had time to look at the crazy or appalling episodes that occurred in some kind of isolation, think about them and consider what they meant to you and your life.| Photo Time Tunnel
My mother was adopted, so our family tree is a bit complicated. On her side, the biological family branch was at a dead end for a long time, until a late-life DNA test by my mother unearthed some results.| Photo Time Tunnel
In various parts of Australia in 2021, people are searching for information about a photographer named Herbert John Pardey. Some facts are known about him. It seems, for example, that he was born in Hackney (London) in 1875 and came to Australia via Melbourne (apparently on medical advice) in 1895. He is understood to have worked for a year as a jackaroo. It appears he married Susan Crowell in West Maitland in 1900. Susan was one of eight siblings and their family, having come out from Englan...| Photo Time Tunnel
White accounts of the lives of Australian Indigenous people are usually condescending, especially those written while the ethnic cleansing of Aboriginal people was in its later stages. I don’t intend to offend with that choice of words, incidentally. I hope that fair-minded and objective white readers will understand my meaning: that whatever motives any particular white people may have had, the overall effect of the takeover of the country easily met modern definitions of genocide.| Photo Time Tunnel
I feel terribly sorry for the young men of my great grandfather’s generation: told to keep their hands above their waists on pain of a thousand terrible tortures. Not only were many young men of that era warned that “self-abuse” was immoral and likely to consign them to hellfire after death, they were also assured […]| Photo Time Tunnel
In decades past, many Australian households had little pocket-sized albums in which were stuck hundreds of tiny stamp-like coupons. These were diligently saved until the books were full and then traded for items at special stores that were operated by the companies that issued the stamps. A number of these loyalty schemes existed, but for […]| Photo Time Tunnel
Bots and large language models are clogging the web and crowding out humans. AI is consuming lakes of fresh water and gigawatts of electricity. It is chewing up hundreds of billions of dollars with no sign of profit in sight. Tell me again why this is a good thing. Exhibit #1: I had realised that […] The post AI is a pain in the neck appeared first on Photo Time Tunnel.| Photo Time Tunnel
Many afternoons, as I remember it, my mother would get a headache, take a Vincent’s powder and retire to her room for a lie down. Vincent’s, wrapped in flat papers in their trademark blue and yellow box, were a fixture in our home for a number of years – along with a red-labelled bottles of […]| Photo Time Tunnel
OPINION BY GREG RAY To be insulted by a man credibly accused of fraud and war crimes is a badge of honour. To hear Israel’s widely loathed prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, assert with a straight face that history will harshly judge his Australian counterpart, Anthony Albanese, is frankly surreal. This piece of Trumpian drivel was […] The post Does Palestine have a right to exist? appeared first on Photo Time Tunnel.| Photo Time Tunnel
In the 1950s Britain was upset that the USA wouldn’t share its atomic bomb secrets. The Brits decided to build their own bombs and they chose to test them in Australia. Nobody will ever know how much sickness and premature death of Australians in the years that followed can be attributed to exposure to radiation […] The post Radioactive bomber at RAAF Williamtown appeared first on Photo Time Tunnel.| Photo Time Tunnel
An unusual photograph album, featuring images of the making of the film Eureka Stockade near Singleton in 1947, has prompted me to do some research into the interesting production. The album of photos, credited to photographer Ronald Fuller, was owned by Mrs Doris Parsons and provided by her grand-daughter, Krys Eyre. After World War 2 […]| Photo Time Tunnel
