Google Street View 1872 unveiled

Holtermman Collection: Greatest Wonder of the World, Gulgong, 1872. Photo: State Library of NSW Source: Supplied

• Promotional shots of 19th century boom towns
• GALLERY: see how Australia lived in the 1870s
• SCROLL DOWN FOR BEFORE AND AFTER SLIDERS

A REMARKABLE new exhibition of newly digitized antique photographs at Sydney's State Library shows how much Australia has changed over the past 140 years.

More than a century before a Californian search engine sent cars to record our houses for Google Street View, a German-born entrepreneur employed early photographers to rove Australia's boom gold towns with large format cameras, capturing every aspect of the rapidly developing colony.

Holtermann Collection: J Greens Pie and Coffee Rooms, Hill End 1872. Photo: State Library of NSW Source: Supplied

Nineteenth century gold towns were vibrant, bustling places packed with numerous tempting ways for cashed-up miners to splurge their wealth.

Holtermann Collection: Hill End Dispensary 1872 and same location 2012. Photo: State Library of NSW Source: Supplied

Imported clothing was all the rage, every man wore a hat and coffee shops did a roaring trade.

Holtermann Collection: Gold speciments from the Star of Hope mine, 1872. Photo: State Library of NSW Source: Supplied

However muddy and dirty the booming towns appeared, catchy signs helped shopkeepers snare customers. How could anyone resist a shop named The Greatest Wonder of the World?

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Packed with informative multimedia and videos, the brilliantly staged new exhibition at the State Library of NSW showcases some of the first photographs ever taken in Australia.

One of the nation's greatest photo archives, the Holtermann Collection captures the goldfields of Victoria and New South Wales, and the rapidly emerging cities of Sydney and Melbourne.

Holtermann Collection: Post Office Hotel, Sydney April 1874. Photo: State Library of NSW Source: Supplied

Selected from a cache of 3,500 plate glass negatives rediscovered in a garden shed in 1951, the incredible images have now been digitised for the first time, revealing remarkable new details.

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Bernhardt Holtermann made his money mining gold in rural NSW, his fortunes peaking with the discovery of the 1.5m long and 286 kg Holtermann nugget, the largest hunk of gold ever found.

Flush with cash, Holtermann bankrolled Victorian photographer Beaufoy Merlin and his young assistant Charles Bayliss on an extraordinary mission: commissioning them to record photos for his great International Travelling Exposition, in the hope the photos would encourage other immigrants to come to Australia and enjoy the same success he had. Not quite Gina Rinehart.

Holtermann Collection: Studios of American & Australasian Photographic Company, Hill End 1872. Photo: State Library of NSW Source: Supplied

Merlin and his young assistant Charles Bayliss began working together in 1869 as the grandly named American and Australiasian Photographic Company, gradually moving north into NSW, recording every town they visited.

Hauling their darkroom on the back of a horse and cart, the new photographic equipment ignited excitement everywhere it went.

In an age where we all carry cameras in our pockets, it's worth remembering that only a few decades after the medium's invention, 19th century photographers struggled with large cameras on heavy tripods, very long exposures and a tricky photographic process: with no auto preview option.

After a tremendous amount of hard work by Davies and his team over the last four years, the State Library of NSW have digitised the entire Holtermann Collection in high resolution, allowing readers to explore old posters on distant walls and bottle labels in pharmacy windows.

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The Greatest Wonder of the World exhibition at the State Library of NSW runs until May 12

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 Simon Crerar is News Limited's Visual Story Editor, follow him at twitter.com/simoncrerar

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Volunteer firefighter killed in blaze

A VOLUNTEER fire fighter has been killed after a bushfire in Quindanning, 160km south-east of Perth.

A spokesman for the Shire of Williams confirmed the man, who lived in Quindanning, died today while mopping up from the blaze adjacent to Fletcher Road, Quindanning.

Police believe the man in his 60s was killed when a tree branch fell on him.

He was taken Narrogin Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

Worksafe has been advised.

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Four years' jail for smuggler pilot

A PILOT who attempted to smuggle more than $1 million worth of methamphetamine through Sydney Airport has been jailed for at least four years.

Thiagu Supramaniam, who was about to be promoted to a position as a Boeing 747 captain with Malaysia Airlines, was caught with 4.49kg of methamphetamine which he was meant to drop off to another drug courier at the Stamford Hotel in Mascot.

Customs and Border Patrol officers caught the 32-year-old with the drugs when they conducted a random inspection of his aircraft after it arrived from Kuala Lumpur on January 10 last year.

They found six packages of the drugs concealed in his luggage when they conducted the random search on arrival.

The details emerged in the District Court yesterday when Judge Ian McClintock jailed Supramaniam for six years with a non-parole period of four years.

Supramaniam pleaded guilty to importing a commercial quantity of the drug, which had an 80 per cent purity level.

He told investigators he had imported similar packages into Australia on four occasions prior to his arrest.

The court also heard he had succumbed to a gambling addiction which ended with a loan shark, connected to drug cartels, who seized his personal identification documents and threatened his family.

By betting on soccer matches starting with the 2008 Euro Cup, Supramaniam had accumulated more than $15,000 in debts and was being crushed by insurmountable interest, the court heard.

He was to be paid $1500 for importing each package of the drugs into Australia.

According to travel records, Supramaniam had travelled to Australia for one-night stays 47 times over six months in 2011, the court heard.

He will be eligible for parole in January, 2016.

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Hathaway the next Oscar Curse victim?

Newlyweds: Anne Hathaway and husband Adam Shulman tied the knot in September last year. Picture: Getty Images Source: Getty Images

IT'S one of the age-old myths surrounding the Academy Awards, but Anne Hathaway and Adam Shulman's marriage will face the test of the Oscar Curse if Hathaway wins the award for Best Actress in a Supporting Role.

The Les Miserables star will be crossing her fingers and toes in the hope that she will take home the prestigious award, but if her name is called then the odds of her having a long and happy marriage will be slashed dramatically.

The newlyweds tied the knot in an intimate ceremony in September 2012.

Female winners of the prestigious award are 63 per cent more likely to have a shorter marriage than those who do not win.

Out of the 266 married women who have been nominated for the Best Actress award since the Oscars began in 1936, 159 of them got divorced.

Winners of the top gong are 1.68 times more likely to head to the divorce court than those who don't win.

The most recent casualty of the winner's curse was Sandra Bullock, whose marriage to Jesse James dissolved within days of her claiming the prize for her role in The Blind Side in 2010, amid accusations he had been unfaithful.

Prior to this, Kate Winslet won the Academy Award for her performance in The Reader in 2009. A year later her marriage to Sam Mendes fell apart.

Despite this, studies have shown that there is virtually no change in the status of married men.

Other victims who have fallen victim to the curse include:

Reese Witherspoon and Ryan Phillipe after Reese was awarded the Oscar back in 2006 for Walk the Line.

Renee Zellweger and Jack White after Zellweger won Best Supporting Actress for Cold Mountain in 2004.

Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend after Theron won Best Actress for her role in Monster in 2003.

Halle Berry and Eric Bennet after Berry was recognised for her part in Monsters Ball in 2002.

Julia Roberts and Benjamin Bratt after Roberts won the award for Erin Brokovitch in 2001.

Ingrid Bergman and Roberto Rossellini after Ingrid won her second Best Actress award in 1956 for Anastasia, the director of which was her husband Rossellini.

Joan Crawford divorced her third husband in 1946 a year after winning an Oscar for Mildred Pierce.

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Chopper jailbreak an epic fail

A HELICOPTER has swooped on a prison courtyard as armed men on board fired at guards and lowered a rope to help a convicted killer make his fourth attempt to escape from a Greek prison.

But the plot was foiled when the prisoner was shot and the chopper was forced to land in the prison's car park.

The dramatic escape attempt is one of only a few that have involved helicopters in Greece and the first time such plans have failed.

Authorities say the chartered helicopter - carrying two armed passengers, a pilot and a technician - first tried to rip off the chicken-wire fence surrounding Trikala prison with a hook dangling from a rope.

When that didn't work, a rope was lowered to whisk away Panagiotis Vlastos, a convicted murderer and racketeer.

Another prisoner, an unnamed Albanian national also in the courtyard at the time, may also have been part of the escape plan.

At the same time, the armed passengers used AK-47 assault rifles to fire on the prison guards.

One guard, who was inside a post, was slightly injured by shards of flying glass. He and others returned fire, injuring Vlastos, who had managed to climb into the helicopter, as well as the helicopter's technician.

Vlastos fell from a height of about three metres into the courtyard and the helicopter was eventually grounded in the car park.

Vlastos, 43, who is serving a life sentence had tried and failed three times before to escape from jail.

Prison officials told TV stations Mega and NET that they recovered more than 500 bullets fired from the helicopter.

The Ministry of Justice added that the helicopter passengers also carried but did not use, "improvised explosive devices."

Authorities said Vlastos was wounded in the legs and is being treated in the prison hospital.

The technician suffered a minor hand injury.

It was not immediately clear if the pilot and flight technician had willingly taken part in the escape attempt or had been forced to fly to the prison, which is located 328km northwest of Athens.

It was also unclear whether the second would-be escapee was part of the scheme or just happened to be in the courtyard and tried to take advantage of the situation.

The helicopter was hired from a western Athens suburb and was supposed to fly to Thessaloniki, in northern Greece. However, it deviated from its flight path to head to the prison.

This is the third time a helicopter has been used in an attempted prison escape in Greece.

Convicted criminals Vassilis Paleokostas and Alket Rizaj were whisked by helicopter from the high-security Korydallos prison in Athens in June 2006.

They were caught but escaped for a second time - again using a helicopter - in February 2009. Paleokostas is still at large.

Vlastos was first arrested in 1994 over the murder of two members of a rival criminal gang.

He was convicted last year as the behind-the-bars mastermind of the kidnapping of shipping tycoon Pericles Panagopoulos. Panagopoulos was kidnapped in January 2009 and released after eight days, when a ransom of 30 million euros ($A38.7 million) was paid.

While awaiting trial for the kidnapping, Vlastos tried to escape in December 2011 from Korydallos prison along with three members of armed anarchist group Conspiracy Nuclei of Fire.

The four used a pistol and knives to take hostage three prison guards and 25 visiting relatives of other prisoners. The four surrendered to authorities after a five-hour stand-off.

Vlastos had also tried to escape, unsuccessfully, in 1994 and 1998.

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Media law changes 'foolish': Xenophon

South Australian Federal Senator Nick Xenophon at Adelaide Airport . Source: Getty Images

INDEPENDENT senator Nick Xenophon has warned the government against implementing new media laws in an election year.

Federal cabinet is expected to consider media reforms when it meets later today.

The package will include a code of ethics for journalists, a tort of privacy and increased Australian content rules.

"Any government that wants to change media laws at this stage has more than a death wish," he told reporters in Canberra this morning, adding it would be "extremely foolish".

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is likely to argue for a change to media ownership rules that would prevent further expansion of the Murdoch empire, The Australian Financial Review said.

Under existing laws, media moguls are restricted to control of two out of three media platforms including commercial television, radio or newspapers.

Senator Conroy is expected to ask cabinet to change this restriction to "two out of four", adding pay TV to the list.

Nationals senator John Williams said the government was unlikely to introduce any controversial legislation before the September 14 election.

"They will take the easy road out," he said.

"If they get into any controversy at all, they run the risk of losing more support."

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Sydney taxi fares could go down

SYDNEY taxi fares could be cut because many people find them too expensive, the pricing regulator says.

The recommended 2.5 per cent fare drop is one of four options suggested by the Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART) in an issues paper released on Monday.

"Our recent survey of Sydney residents on taxi use found that almost half of people surveyed had not used taxis in the last six months," IPART said in the paper.

"Around two thirds of people who had considered taking a taxi but in the end did not do so said the reason why was because taxis are too expensive."

The other options include no change to fare levels, an increase in line with the Consumer Price Index rise of about 2.5 per cent, and a change of fares in line with the Taxi Cost Index.

The pricing body is seeking submissions on its issues paper, with any fare changes to take effect from July.

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