General News
29 May, 2026
Pictures to help travel back in time
SETTING up a portable darkroom tent and an old-fashioned camera, Darron Davies is planning to time travel in Laanecoorie.
SETTING up a portable darkroom tent and an old-fashioned camera, Darron Davies is planning to time travel in Laanecoorie.
With the help of Laanecoorie locals, Darron will be in the region in the weeks leading up to the Loddon Valley Arts Trail festival, searching the locations shown in a cache of historic photos he found in an op shop, as well as those held in the archives.
Laanecoorie Mechanics Institute Hall will then host Darron’s “Time Travel” for the festival from October 2 to 4.
“I’ll create an ambience in the hall, with vintage wind-up record players and vintage cameras,” Darron said.
“In the weeks before, in a portable darkroom tent I’ll set up outside the hall, I’ll be using a strobe as part of the old tintype process that they used back in the 19th century.
It makes even new images look like they come out of the past.”
Darron is working with Leonie Baker from the Hall committee to take photographs of people and places, which he says are “between worlds – exploring the interface between images captured in the current day yet intriguingly looking like photos from a distant past”.
He will demonstrate and explain the heritage photographic processes in the hall, also taking people’s portraits there, which he will develop on the spot so you can have your own “time travel” image to keep.
Leonie is keen to hear from anyone who has historic photographs of the region, and the Hall’s memorabilia collection will be on display for the Time Travel exhibition too.
While the Weir was constructed in 1891, the famous bridge was designed by Sir John Monash to replace the 1870 bridge destroyed in the 1909 flood.
The town also had a famous football club, which dominated the Loddon league for decades in the early 1900s, winning nine premierships including five in a row immediately after the First World War, when locals and workers were fixing the weir and building the Monash bridge.
These team photos can be seen in the Hall’s historical collection.
This unique exhibition will be especially created for Laanecoorie, and a feature event at the Loddon Valley Arts Trail festival.
For more information, visit: loddonval-leyartstrail@gmail.com.
Read More: Llanelly, Loddon Shire