Historical information

This is a photograph of Jack Warren, Jessie and Sylvia McNaughton.
The photographer was Warren, Helena (1871-1962) who was a self-taught photographer who became both the local press correspondent and a producer of humorous trompe l'oeil postcard images. Helena Warren was a thirty-two year old settler living on a small mixed farm with her husband, William, at Newmerella, near Orbost in Gippsland, Victoria, when she bought her first camera, an Austral Box quarter-plate. Her family says she was entirely self-taught, like many women photographers who started out with nothing but the instructions on the packets of film and chemicals. In over fifty years practice she graduated from the total novice, who opened all her first mail order plates in bright sunlight and ruined them, to a competent photographer who became both the local press correspondent and an inveterate producer of humorous trompe l’oeil postcard images.

Significance

This photograph has significance in its association with Helen Frances Warren, a popular Orbost identity who was well known as an accomplished photographer and needleworker.

Physical description

A black / white photograph of three young chilodren sitting in a pumpkin in water. There is a Union Jack at each end.