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The photos on the 2026 History Month website were taken by Victorian photographer Paul William Merlo (1877-1954) in or around 1915.

As a self-taught photographer, he began his practice in the 1890s. Over the course of several decades, he took jobs that would take him across the countryside – from labourer to lineman to postal worker – and would use the opportunity to photograph the world he saw and the people he encountered.

Most of his photographs were taken in Gippsland in the 1910s. Although some are purely landscapes or buildings, most of his images contain a human element. They are often formal – carefully posed and framed – yet still strike an emotional connection with the viewer, with the sitter often making eye contact with the camera, looking natural and embedded in their environment.

Despite his unique and recognisable photography style, Merlo was not famous in his lifetime or after. Outside of the archives held by the Royal Historical Society of Victoria and a few articles on Trove, there does not appear to be a lot of information about Merlo.

But his photos live on, inviting viewers to enter the private world of the photographer and the photographed, showing people in the unassuming places that they called home – sometimes their physical home, others places that they felt at home – crossing a local bridge or walking in their patch of forest, participating in a working bee with neighbours, or enjoying time at the beach with family.