Victor Rupert Laidlaw, Dugouts at Gallipoli, Turkey, c1915, State Library Victoria. Gift from Mrs E Barker, 1984.

Private Laidlaw’s photograph depicts a soldier seated outside his dugout, his kit stored behind a row of tins. Poles can be seen holding up a roof of branches. Camps such as this were dug into the hillside by the soldiers, covering Anzac Cove. Private Laidlaw enlisted in the services on 18 August 1914. His diaries and photographs recall his time en route to Alexandria, at the Mena Camp at Cairo, on Lemnos Island, in the Dardanelles at Cape Helles and Anzac Cove, Gallipoli, and in France.