Take a step back in time and look in on Australian streets as they were 100 years ago.

In these unique digital montages, Australian people of 1914 mingle with their 21st century counterparts on streets that retain an uncanny resemblance to the way they were.

Australians, seemingly oblivious to the impending war, stand on street corners chatting, their lives merged with their modern counterparts who scurry about their business.

The original photographs were taken around 1914 on glass plate negatives.

The photographers used large format field cameras, propped on the back of trucks, or standing precariously on shop awnings – unrestricted by modern OHS laws.

To match the perspective and view of the old cameras, the modern scenes were created from a mash-up of three to five photographs taken on a digital camera.

Each image has been hand-blended from the old and new to create individual digital montages bringing together the lives of Australian people going about their daily routines despite the separation of a century of history.

The experience of "being Australian" had not yet been defined on the battlefields of Gallipoli and the Western Front; Australia was about to change in unimaginable ways when these photographs were taken, but in some ways, as the montages suggest, perhaps Australia has not changed that much.

Looking across the intersection of Swanston and Flinders Streets from the north east corner showing Flinders Street Station with a view along Flinders Street, as heavy traffic of cars, trams, horse drawn vehicles and pedestrians battle for space. ( 1914 - State Library of Victoria: Unknown photographer. 2014 - 774 ABC Melbourne: John Donegan )

Exterior of the Mackler Leather building in Elizabeth Street, Brisbane, with a man believed to be Charles Mackler standing in the doorway. ( 1914 - State Library of Queensland: Unknown photographer. 2014 - 612 ABC Brisbane: John Donegan )

King Street, Perth ( 1914 - State Library of Western Australia: Unknown photographer. 2014 - 720 ABC Perth: Emma Wynne )

King William Street, Adelaide, looking south from Gouger Street, taken on the last day on which the Glenelg train came up King William Street. ( 1914 - State Library of SA: Unknown photographer. 2014 - 891 ABC Adelaide: John Donegan )

Old Mr. Charles Davis and his son Charlie going home to dinner. Their store, 'C.Davis American Hardware' is in the background, on the corner of Elizabeth Street and Cat and Fiddle Lane, Hobart. ( 1914 - Allport Library: Thomas J. Nevin. 2014 - 936 ABC Hobart: John Donegan )