Writing with light: a photographer’s vision: Frank Hurley and the 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition

Abstract

Frank Hurley’s photography from the 1911–1914 Australasian Antarctic Expedition (AAE) has been largely overlooked as a body of work in isolation, too often apprenticed to images he created during Ernest Shackleton’s 1914–1917 Imperial Trans-Antarctic “Endurance” Expedition. It was Hurley’s first Antarctic experience with the AAE, living and working at Commonwealth Bay in unprecedented wind conditions, and sledging 500 km to and from the vicinity of the South Magnetic Pole, that forged his abiding visual narrative of man’s struggle against nature. The images Frank Hurley captured during the AAE and the “Endurance” Expedition “have so colonised the popular imagination, that they are now the primary means by which the expeditions are visualised”. This paper explores Hurley’s photographic vision, informed by Pictorial aesthetics and embraced through his first experience of Antarctica as official photographer and cinematographer to the AAE; it positions Hurley’s preoccupation with depictions of the Hero as a manifestation of Imperial identity and pride; it analyses the embellishments of Hurley’s iconic AAE blizzard photograph, and touches upon the seeming contradiction of his most contentious darkroom practice – creating composites from two or more images – in which he privileged the Modernist notion of sensate truth above the factual accuracy intrinsic to traditional photojournalism and documentary making.

Keywords:

• Frank Hurley
• Antarctic photography
• Heroic Era
• Australasian Antarctic Expedition

Notes

¹ Szto, Furman, and Langer, “Poetry and Photography.” Qualitative Social Work, 140.

² Hurley, A Camera Study, 5.

³ Hunter, “A.A.E. Diaries,” Diary Entry, March 5, 1912.

⁴ Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, Diary Entry, March 16, 1912, 65.

⁵ Ibid., Diary Entry, April 10, 1912, 72.

⁶ Mertz, “AAE Diary,” Diary Entry, April 16, 1912.

⁷ Hurley, “Frank Hurley: Official Photographer.” The Australasian Photo-Review, 129.

⁸ Mawson, Home of the Blizzard, 1915.

⁹ Hurley, Home of the Blizzard, Cinematograph, 1913.

¹⁰ Hurley, Argonauts of the South, 56–7 interleaf.

¹¹ Stieglitz, “Pictorial Photography.” in Photography: Essays and Images, 164.

¹² Erwin, Pictorialism into Modernism, 150.

¹³ Newton, South with Endurance, 48.

¹⁴ Nasht, Frank Hurley, DVD, 2004.

¹⁵ Ibid.

¹⁶ Mercury Newspaper, December 4, 1911.

¹⁷ Ennis, Man with a Camera, 9.

¹⁸ Hurley, “Pictorial Landscape Photography,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 307.

¹⁹ Splatt and Bruce, Australian Impressionist Painters, 76.

²⁰ Cato, in Legg, Once More on My Adventure, 219.

²¹ Davies, An Eye for Photography, 46.

²² Legg, Once More on My Adventure, 6.

²³ Hurley, Argonauts of the South, 10.

²⁴ Stieglitz, “Pictorial Photography.” in Photography: Essays and Images, 163.

²⁵ Jolly, “Fake Photographs,” 45.

²⁶ Ibid.

²⁷ Gunning, New Thresholds of Vision, 95.

²⁸ Dixon, “Pictures at an Exhibition.” Journal of Australian Studies, 78, 124.

²⁹ Hurley, “Night Photography,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 239.

³⁰ Hurley, “Pictorial Landscape Photography,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 302.

³¹ Hurley, “Photographing Locomotives,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 10.

³² Hurley, “Pictorial Landscape Photography,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 303.

³³ Millar, From Snowdrift to Shellfire, 144.

³⁴ Frank Hurley, “Frank Hurley: Official Photographer,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 129.

³⁵ Mawson, “Frank Hurley – Artist,” Life, 167.

³⁶ Davis, High Latitude, 169.

³⁷ Mertz, “AAE Diary,” Diary Entry, January 29, 2012.

³⁸ Hannam, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, March 15, 1912.

³⁹ Hunter, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, April 6, 1912.

⁴⁰ McLean, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, April 21, 1912.

⁴¹ Hannam, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, May 18, 1912.

⁴² Ernest Shackleton in 1907–1909; Robert F. Scott and Roald Amundsen in 1910–1912.

⁴³ Hunter, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, February 25, 1912.

⁴⁴ Newton, Shades of Light, 99.

⁴⁵ Millar, From Snowdrift to Shellfire, 28.

⁴⁶ Jacka and Jacka, Mawson’s Antarctic Diaries, Diary Entry, April 8, 1912, 71.

⁴⁷ Mertz, “AAE Diary,” Diary Entry, March 6, 1912.

⁴⁸ Hurley, “Pictorial Landscape Photography,” The Australasian Photo-Review, 303.

⁴⁹ McGregor, A Photographer’s Life, 58.

⁵⁰ Hunter, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, August 31, 1912.

⁵¹ A comprehensive discussion on Frank Hurley’s AAE composites forms a separate publication submission.

⁵² Hunter, “AAE Diaries,” Diary Entry, July 16, 1912.

⁵³ Ibid., July 21, 1912.

⁵⁴ Hurley, “AAE Sledging Journal,” journal entry, November 25, 1912.

⁵⁵ Ibid., November 27, 1912.

⁵⁶ Genoni, “The Photographic Eye,” Antipodes 16, no. 2, 138.

⁵⁷ Hurley, “AAE Sledging Journal,” journal entry, December 21, 1912.

⁵⁸ Ibid., December 22, 1912.

⁵⁹ Parer, in McGregor, Frank Hurley: A Photographer’s Life, 358.

⁶⁰ Ansara, “A Few Words about Frank Hurley,” Metro 115, 41.