Ern McQuillan OAM (1926–2018), photographer, was born in Sydney and grew up in the inner western suburbs. He acquired a box brownie as a boy and began working on the Truth and Sportsman newspapers at the age of fifteen. In 1944 he was drafted into the army and assigned to the military history unit as a photographer, working in the Celebes (now Sulawesi, Indonesia) as well as in Sydney, where he took the photograph that was used in the Department of Veterans' Affairs 1945–1995 commemorative campaign, Australia Remembers. At one time a professional boxer (his father was a well-known boxing trainer), he renounced the sport when his news editor complained that he looked too beaten around to send on photographic assignments. He won the first Press Photograph competition in 1951. Over the course of his career McQuillan photographed many prominent people, including Queen Elizabeth II and Richard Nixon, for a range of publications including Woman's Weekly, Sunday Telegraph, Daily Telegraph and the Bulletin. In his late seventies he was still working as a press photographer in Sydney.
