About this record

This is a black-and-white photograph of a man standing with his hands in his pockets, gazing at a sign pointing to water. The sign is sticking out of arid, desert-like ground.

Educational value

• Shows land near the Murray River, Australia's largest river.
• Graphically illustrates the absence of water in the Murray River during the 1937–47 drought, when the Hunter, Hawkesbury and Murray Rivers all stopped flowing for at least part of their lengths.
• Shows an example of the land ravaged by the 1937–47 drought, which became the subject of paintings by artist Russell Drysdale (1912–81), such as The Rabbiters and The Drover's Wife.
• Demonstrates the use of whimsical ironic humour to draw attention to the very real problems caused by drought and interruption to the water supply – this is still relevant today as more pressure is brought to bear on the Murray's water supply and the increasing problem of salinity.
• Shows a dry and scrubby landscape with powdery soil, perhaps caused by increased salt levels as irrigation water seeps below the root level of shallow-rooting crops, raising the watertable and bringing salt up with it.