The Sydney Harbour Bridge, aviator Charles Kingsford Smith, and a returned soldier wearing his medals on Anzac Day feature in Fit to Print: Defining Moments from the Fairfax Photo Archive.

The exhibition, which showcases 150 photographs illustrating moments in Australian history from the 1890s to the late-1940s, runs at the National Library of Australia (NLA) from 27 February to 20 July.

The photographs are printed from the original glass negative plates that featured in publications like The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun and Sydney Mail.

They cover a range of themes, including sporting and social events, the opening of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, aviation, rural scenes, industry, celebrities and politicians.

The images were selected by Australian photojournalist Mike Bowers, alongside NLA’s director of exhibitions Dr Guy Hansen and curator Allister Mills.

Bowers said the photographs were a valuable collection that charted the birth of photojournalism in Australia.

He said there was a latent power to the images, some that hadn’t been seen for more than 100 years.

“Printing them and putting them on a wall is where they’re supposed to be. They’re supposed to be viewed like this,” Bowers said.

“We live our lives in a digital age where you’re looking at a little teeny screen and all the images have a power on the screen but nothing like when they’re beautifully printed, framed and presented on a wall like they are in the Fit to Print exhibition at the national library.”

There are more than 18,000 negatives in the library’s collection.

Bowers said having worked on similar images himself, those present in the exhibition set the tone for the early photographers who worked for newspapers.

“Once the halftone photographic process (a printing technique where patterns of dots were used to create images) became something that was available, they drew their photographs from the big studios of the day,” he said.

“Studios had photographers that would travel around the country as well doing portraits in the studio.

“They would take things called scenes, so the big studios had 60-70,000 postcards and you go in and select them and put them in.”

Bowers said when newspapers needed photographers, they hired them from the studios, which he said resulted in “stilted” work.

“It’s like they’ve taken people out of the studio and placed them into the environment,” he said.

“There’s some around here that look very mannequin-like and set up.

“They started to develop a storytelling and a visual storytelling technique.”

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