Well Hello. James Sutton here and today I’m on Dudley Avenue in Roseville to talk about a gentleman who lived most of his life here at a house called Ambleside and became Australia’s leading photographer. Harold Cazneaux won the Kodak sponsored “Happy Moments” Photographic competition in 1914 and used his first prize which was 100 pounds, as a deposit to buy 24 Dudley Street right here. Harold along with his wife Winnie and daughters Rainbow, Jean, Beryl and Carmen moved in a year later, 2 more children Joan and Harold junior would arrive soon after. Initially Harold worked for a photographic business called Freeman and Co, but he resigned and fell into a deep depression. After a year in bed his family and friends encouraged him to pull himself together.
He decided to build a studio on the side of the house, having already converted a bedroom to his dark-room. He became the photographer for the magazine, Home, which was read by most Sydney households of the time. One of his great passions outside photography became his garden, which he landscaped and cultivated including a dovecote that became synonymous with his home. He would replicate all the best features of the gardens he photographed for the magazine, at home. The family lived frugally, growing vegetables and keeping a wide range of poultry.

His daughters, Rainbow and Jean, became his assistants, and later reported that their dad would run a rort of taking cuttings from the plants that caught his eye during the shoots of the finest gardens in Sydney and the girls would help smuggle these into his camera bag without being noticed. His photography covered many landcape, portrait and architecture gallery exhibitions but one of his most famous images taken was of a River Red Gum tree that had survived and prospered amongst the most arid of conditions in the Flinders ranges of South Australia. The photograph was entitled “The Spirit of Endurance” and the tree which still stands is known as the Cazneaux tree. Cazneaux was still working at Ambleside when he passed away in 1953, 35 years after building the studio. Dick Smith who established the electronics retail empire named after himself, was Harold’s Grandson and recalls as a youngster watching his mum manually retouch photographs no doubt for Harold. In fact Dick credits his love of electronics stemming from the unfortunate death of Harold’s son, Dick’s uncle. Harold Junior died in the Second world war, he collected radio equipment and Dick Smith recalls being allowed to spend some time in his room, playing with the radio equipment and fiddling with the soldering iron. Now back to the present day and the current median price for a 4 Bedroom house in Roseville currently sits at $3.36 million. That means that the median of a 4 Bedroom house held since 2020 has risen in value by $780,000. The median for 5 Bedroom houses in Roseville currently stands at $4.61 million, which is $1.47 million more than in 2020. My name’s James Sutton, I’m the Principal at McGrath Wahroonga. If you’d like to discuss your property I’d be delighted to help you, you can reach me at 0422 704 370 or drop into my office at 17 Redleaf Avenue, Wahroonga. Bye for now.