A surprise find in a brown paper bag at a Sydney Market of photographs of Coogee Beach taken in 1935 and 1936 is the basis of a new exhibition at The Mint. But the photographer remains unknown and as Alex Jones found out the curator of the exhibition is hoping that the audience will be able to help identify the mystery photographer.

Two young lovers lie on a towel on the sands of Coogee Beach. Fresh from a swim in the ocean, they are speckled with droplets of sea water that catch the light of the sun. Her head rests on his shoulder, obscuring his face from the camera that’s taking their photograph. Limbs intertwined, they are the image of romance.

The photograph is one of 210 images taken at the beach over the summer of 1935 and 1936, and is part of a current Historic Houses Trust exhibition, On Coogee Beach. More than 70 years may have passed since these pictures were taken, but for Ross Heathcote, Head Curator of the Historic Houses Trust, the display at The Mint in Macquarie Street is just the next chapter in this unique exhibition’s story.

The six rolls of 35 millimetre film containing the photographs were found in a humble brown paper bag at a Balmain market 10 years ago. Heathcote, himself a photographer and collector, says his friend spotted the bag at a stall among bits and pieces of photographic material and bought the film on his behalf for the grand total of $1.50.

Little did Heathcote know this spare-change-purchase would result in the discovery of a priceless historical treasure. In rolling out the film, he noticed hand-written words and numbers on it, including the word Coogee and the numbers 1935 and 1936.

“That’s when I realised they were a whole lot of shots over that summer. It felt very exciting because they really shouldn’t have survived at all,” he said. “They were remarkably consistently shot images, with a certain beauty to them.”

“It’s a really nice thing to look at as a photographer. This is somebody’s work from all these years ago that’s been rolled up in a ball ever since. We’re unravelling them – literally and metaphorically – maybe for the first time.”

The photographs are believed to have been taken by a professional photographer who worked during the Depression. But aside from knowing the date and summer of when the photographs were taken, there is no record of the photographer’s identity or that of the people in the pictures.

However, rather than being frustrated by this, Heathcote says that that is what makes the exhibition all the more unique.

“So much that you come across in collections and museums has been thoroughly worked over. But this didn’t come with a set of background information, so it’s a bit mysterious. No one’s researched it, so there are unanswered questions. That makes for a nice detective story,” he said .

In hanging the exhibition, it is hoped that members of Coogee community will recognise people in the photographs or even deduce the identity of the photographer. Seniors groups associated with Randwick Council, as well as members of Coogee’s Surf Life Saving Club have been invited, but are yet to attend the exhibition. Heathcote anticipates a fun journey ahead.

To the best of his knowledge, the exhibition is the first in which the public has been specifically encouraged to identify people.

“It’s nice to be able to engage people and get them involved in the mystery with you. If we started off knowing everything about the photographer it might not have been so beguiling and driving as a project,” he said.

It’s was the same desire to celebrate people and their environment that inspired photographer Jon Lewis to document Bondi Beach in a series of photographs during the 1980s. For Lewis , much like the Coogee photographer, he captured history simply by capturing the characters of the time.

“I’m drawn to different people. People make the world go round. It’s our family, it’s our lovers, it’s our friends, it’s our enemies. When you think about it, people are what we need, people are like air,” Lewis said.

“And photography is the medium of people. With photography, you freeze someone for that split second and it gives this wonderful kind of veracity. People want to believe the person in the photo is real. And that nurtures our imagination to think about those people and how they lived their lives at the time,” he said.

Heathcote believes that this one of the strengths of the photographs featured in On Coogee Beach.

“It’s rare that I’ve shown them to anyone who hasn’t started imagining things about the people in them. I’ve noticed that anyone who’s looked at this set looks deeper into the photographs. People feel the space to imagine a little. If it’s not a story that you know, still imagery tends to have space to create that narrative.”

The photographs show both change and continuity. The way Sydneysiders relate to the beach is still largely the same, in that it’s still a place of refuge and escape for many Australians. However for Heathcote, the greatest point of difference between now and then is not found within the photographs – it’s the photographs themselves.

“Each of the photographs is one shot per image, so the photographer took one photo of a group and then moved on. For us that’s a very strange thing these days, because we like to take multiple shots of something and edit as we go.”

The images also rekindle a flame that Heathcote believes has died with the introduction of digital photography. “The thing I miss most about photography is working in the darkroom and that magic process,” he said. “You’re exposing this stuff to light and it’s about a moment and this chemistry. As much as we try to cling on to it, some of the romance of the process is gone.”

Lewis agrees. “We’ve got all this wonderful technology, but you don’t really see any really great digital photographs. It’s like writing a poem. If you write a poem, it’s got a beginning, a middle and an end. Photography has just become one-liners.”

“But this photographer, whoever he or she was, has created a body of work. And that’s when someone has dedicated themselves to trying to show how they feel. That to me shows how committed that person was,” Lewis said .

Ross Heathcote, too, remains committed to finding another venue for the photographs once the exhibition finishes. As far as he’s concerned, the photographs have been hidden for too long already to return to darkness for another 70 years. And he’s already begun looking for a gallery closer to Coogee where the story of these prints began.

“That’s where these images really belong,” he said.