24 Australian GeographicI
N AUGUST 1948 the cover of Sydney’s pictorial mag-
azine PIX featured a stylish young woman wearing
an elegant suit and holding a Speed Graphic camera,
as if she was a film star playing a ‘girl photographer’
(above). The girl in the picture, Adelie Hurley, however,
was the real deal. Arguably Australia’s first female press
photographer, colleagues called her ‘Front Page Hurley’
because her work regularly appeared on the front pages of
Sydney’s newspapers.
This wasn’t the first time Adelie (1919–2010) had
appeared on the cover of PIX. As a model she’d already
made several appearances in the magazine, but this was the
first that celebrated her life behind the camera.
Recently returned from San Francisco where she’d been
living since 1945, Adelie was photographed for the feature in
action on Sydney’s streets. Carr ying her unwieldy camera,
she is striding through the city with her customary élan,
climbing ladders, perching on building precipices and
charming her subjects, all with hair in place, lipstick on
and in a straight skirt and heels.
Although she usually swapped the skirt for slacks when
working, Adelie was always chic. The daughter of Antoinette
Hurley and acclaimed Antarctic and war photographer
Frank Hurley, Adelie was born in Sydney in 1919, and often
said she’d been named after the penguins her father had
photographed in the Antarctic. As children, she and her
twin sister, Toni, and their siblings had helped their father
with his work. But it wasn’t until she picked up a friend’s
Graflex camera at the age of 17 and looked through the
viewfinder that she thought “this is for me”.
Her first story, about a friend living on Goat Island,
appeared in PIX in 1941. More stories followed. Although
none of the papers would put her on staff (allegedly dueto their lack of women’s toilets), she was soon employed
regularly as a freelance photographer.
In 1942 Adelie made her way to Darwin, stowing away
in a military convoy, and took photos for the Daily Telegraph
of Australian soldiers and the city after the first bombs
fell. Living in the USA, she sent back stories about racy
San Francisco nightclubs, and the lives of Australian war
brides. Back working on Sydney’s daily papers, Adelie pho-
tographed everything from fashion shows to murder scenes.
Despite resistance from some male colleagues, who would
sabotage her cameras, she was known for her resourcefulness
and determination as well as her technical proficiency. She
continued to get work, she said, “simply because I nearly
always get my picture”.
In 1954 she joined the staff of The Australian Women’s
Weekly and shot stories in India, Fiji and Russia just after
the Cold War began. She visited many remote parts of
Australia and the beautiful photographs of the country’s
landscape that she sent into homes on the glossy pages of the
magazine sparked a desire in many to explore the country
for themselves.
It wasn’t until the 1970s that any women were employed
full-time as photographers in Australian newsrooms, by
which time Adelie was travelling the country in a con-
verted, self-contained bus (with wall-to-wall carpet and
a cocktail cabinet), selling her photographs to magazines
and publishers. She retired in the 1980s to Coffs Harbour
with Toni where the pair continued to make a glamorous
splash as ‘Las Presidentas’ of the region.
LINDA BRAINWOODSNAPSHOT
FRONT PAGE
HURLEY
This pioneering photographer showed the
same gutsy determination to nail the
perfect shot as her famous dad before her.PHOTO CREDITS: PIX COVER: PIX, 7 AUGUST 1948, COURTESY STATE LIBRARY OF NSW; MAIN PHOTO AND DARKROOM: IVAN IVES, MITCHELL LIBRARY, STATE LIBRARY OF NSW, COURTESY ACP MAGAZINES (ON 388/BOX 080/ITEM 194)Linda is a picture researcher and the editor of the
Dictionary of Sydney website at the State Library of NSW.Adelie, seen here (below) in a darkroom processing
her images, had a reputation for tenacity and
resourcefulness. “Being a press photographer suits my
personality,” she said. “I’ll go anywhere, anytime.”