Tags: History. Historical events. Queensland. Brisbane. Australia
One of the inescapable facts of life is that more often than not, the most interesting items are discovered by accident and this was certainly the case when well-known photographer Lissa Winston and her father went searching for a lost bowl on Christmas Day in 2016. ‘Mum wanted us to find a bowl that she hadn’t seen for a while and so we started searching through various cupboards and boxes.
Featured Image(above): Photos such as this one of the three jetties will be exhibited at the Seaside Museum
During our search, I happened to notice some old tins and a little box with Kodak on it and I just had to have a closer look. In them were more than one hundred glass negatives and other photographic items that had belonged to my grandfather Frank Winston,’ said Lissa. ‘All except one of the glass negatives were in good condition, even though they were stored on top of each other and rubbing together. I recall that he always liked working with glass because it produced a much sharper image and when I look at what I have been able to develop from the negatives that I have found, I can see what he meant,’ she added.
Lissa explained that the Winston family had a long association with Bribie Island and had grown tobacco on land which was bordered by what is now Winston Drive in Bongaree. She said that that was grandfather Frank’s two brothers who, after experiencing a downturn in the tobacco farming, had bought Bestmann and Hall’s shop in the 1930’s and when her grandfather produced postcards with some of his many photos, he used to sell them through the store.
This Frank Winston image shows an early attempt at a wall to prevent erosion
As well as being an avid photographer and taking hundreds of photos of the area, Frank Winston was also an adept movie maker and along with being a member and later on the president of the Queensland Amateur Cine Society, his talent with a movie camera won him a number of awards. Since her discovery, Lissa has been working hard to prepare her grandfather’s images and is now going to offer both locals and visitors the chance to view them at an exhibition in the Bribie Island Seaside Museum from August 10th until November 4th.
Whilst the exhibition will feature a great many of Frank Winston’s beautiful images of Bribie Island in the early 1900’s, his movie “Bay Trips” will be playing at various times in the museum cinema. Lissa told me that the movie has scenes of coming to Bribie via Redcliffe on both the Koopa and the Doomba as well showing a journey through the island and then on Pumicestone Passage. For anyone who has an interest in the way this island once was, this exhibition should be regarded as a “must Visit.”