The Local Studies collection, Waverley Library includes a very large photograph collection. However most of these photos were not created by Waverley Council. This means we do not own the copyright and therefore the reproduction rights to these images. These photographs are held by Local Studies as they are valuable for research. 

Access to collection  
In order to access the photograph collection an appointment must be made with the Local Studies Librarian. To do this phone: 02 9386 7744 or email kimberlyo@waverley.nsw.gov.au There is no photo database on this Library website. 

Iconic photos  
Most of the early iconic photographs of the Waverley area e.g. the beaches at Bondi, Bronte and Tamarama, early swimming costumes and the Bondi Junction trams are held by institutions other than Waverley Library. These are best sourced, in the first instance, from PictureAustralia. 

PictureAustralia  
PictureAustralia www.pictureaustralia.org  is an Internet based service that allows you to search many significant online pictorial collections at the same time. When you do a search on Picture Australia, thumbnail images are retrieved from the many participating institutions and saved as the one search result.

For example, a search on ‘Bondi’ will retrieve images from all the PictureAustralia agencies that hold images of Bondi. Apart from the institutions which might be expected to hold such images, such as the State Library of NSW, many images of Bondi also appear other less obvious collections e.g. State Records, the Australian War Memorial, the National Archives of Australia and the National Library, Canberra.

Do you have a photo of my old family home?
The general answer to the frequently-asked question “Do you have a photo of my old family home?” is “No”. There are always exceptions of course, so it is important to contact us to check. Why don’t we have such photos? Waverley Council did not (and does not) have a policy of photographing private houses.

Where houses do appear in Council photographs it is because they accidentally appear in the background of something else the Council was photographing. For example, if Council photographed a newly sealed road, a dangerous corner or a tram shed, local houses would appear in the background to these photos. 

In the example below, a Waverley Council engineer took a photo of new road works and a supporting structural wall on Marine Drive, Tamarama in 1935. In the background of the photograph appear some of the earliest homes along Marine Parade. The photograph shows how sparsely settled Tamarama was in 1935, but this was not the focus of the photographer, or the reason the photo was taken. It was an accidental outcome of an engineering photograph.

Copyright  
The majority of photographs held in the Local Studies photograph collection were not created by Waverley Council. This means we do not own the copyright and cannot copy them. For more information on Australian copyright laws see the Australian Copyright Council website: www.copyright.org.au and specifically the information sheets on photographs, photographers and copyright. 

Media images of Waverley 
The print media is a good source of images of Waverley. Newspix, is a leading photo syndication service run by News Limited publishers of 150 newspapers, including The Australian and The Daily Telegraph. Their archives include over 40 million photos and are updated daily. On the site is a section ‘Historical Australia’ which contains images of the Waverley area. www.newspix.com.au 

Fairfaxphotos is a showcase of the best photography from the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and the Financial Review. This site will allow you to order photos, including pre-framed photos and reproduction front pages of their newspapers. On the site a folder called ‘Picture Perfect’ covers 100 years of Fairfax photography and has many historic images of Waverley, particularly Bondi Beach. www.fairfaxphotos.com

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