Circa January 1932 - No. 364 "VIEW OF BEACH & BATHS, COOGEE, SYDNEY, N.S.W.", Australia (restored version)

IMAGE INFO

- Photographer's viewpoint is looking south from the Beach Street promenade beside Coogee Beach.

- I have dated this image to Circa January 1932, since:

(a) It is very likely during the January School Holidays (mid-summer conditions) & owing to the sheer number of adults & younger bathers.

(b) The number of this real photo post-card at No. 364 is substantially higher (& therefore produced later) than the No. 131 Coogee Pier & beach pic - which I have dated to January 1931, when the Pier is clearly still operating (albeit only just) & still open to the paying public.

(b) The COOGEE OCEAN PIER was closed to the public circa mid 1932 by order of Randwick Council (shortly after this pic would have been taken) - interest having died away rapidly after the grand opening in November 1929 due to expensive entrance fees & lack of promised on-pier attractions. The Pier was demolished by April-May 1934.

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SOURCE INFO

- One copy of a nitrate photo-negative film, 9 x 15 cm real photo postcard from the "Samuel Wood - postcard photo-negatives of Coogee, ca. 1928-1932 Collection". (The Collection's estimated vintage of 1928-1932 is out by some margin, since there are shots in this collection taken well after the Pier was demolished in mid-1934!)

- The original real photo postcard was digitized by the State Library of New South Wales.

- The digitized original is available from the SLNSW online collection here:

digital.sl.nsw.gov.au/delivery/DeliveryManagerServlet?dps...

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CREDITS

- Samuel Wood (1876-1957) for the original B&W image & real photo postcard.

- Mitchell & State Libraries of New South Wales for their valuable work in digitizing, archiving & making available online this rare historical content.

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COPYRIGHT STATUS

- Per SLNSW advice:

Out of copyright: created before 1955

- Regarding my own work in creating this unique cropped, restored & duo-toned version from the digitized original, I have applied "Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike".

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PROCESS INFO

- I downloaded a copy of the digitized original (very badly faded with sections of uneven exposure ).

- Using Adobe Photoshop Creative Suite 8.0, I enlarged by ~94% , adjusted areas of uneven exposure, restored contrast & sharpness & used a dark sepia duo-tone curve for much better tonal range.

Done