Darge Photographic Company collection of negatives

Studio portrait of 2768 Private (Pte) Martin Daniel Pianta, 22nd Battalion. A labourer from Stawell, Vic prior to enlistment, Pte Pianta embarked with the 6th Reinforcements from Melbourne on HMAT Ulysses on 27 October 1915. Later transferring to the 5th Pioneer Battalion, he died of wounds on 29 September 1918 and was buried in the Hargicourt Communal Cemetery Extension. This is one of a series of photographs taken by the Darge Photographic Company which had a permit to take photographs at the Broadmeadows and Seymour army camps during the First World War. In the 1930s, the Australian War Memorial purchased the original glass negatives from Algernon Darge, along with the photographers' notebooks. The notebooks contain brief details, usually a surname or unit name, for each negative.