Slow Photography #72 Epic Struggle: True Myths of Shackleton's Endurance Expedition

"Endurance trapped in pack ice" by Frank Hurley (1885–1962) - Public Domain, 
Digital Collections of the National Library of Australia — nla.pic-an23478504.   
First published on the page 156 of Hurley's Argonauts of the South (1925), 
London and New York: Putnam & Sons. 

ENDURANCE.

.
 The ship. A single frame.

ERNEST SHACKLETON.

Its captain. A single frame from a Kodak Vest Pocket camera.

Ross Sea Party on Elephant Island, Frank Hurley photograph.

The crew. A single frame? No.

Although the image above was labeled as a single frame of the ship's crew on Elephant Island cheering Shackleton on his return, the clouds were added later from second image that Frank Hurley took. There is also no doubt that the original image was not taken on Ernest Shackleton's return to the stranded men, but on his departure from the Ross Sea Party.

 But there is doubt about whether this matters. I believe that in this case, the end justifies the means, and the Endurance story, not the photo alteration, is what matters. The photographs tell an epic story that is larger than their artistic license and alterations. 

So, who was the guy who took these?


WHO WAS THE PHOTOGRAPHER?

 James Francis "Frank" Hurley was an adventure photographer. He once stripped to the waist and plunged under the icy water below the sinking Endurance to rescue his glass and cellulose negatives.

We know now that Hurley used staged scenes, post-processing and manipulated his photographs, according to 98 year old Australian Alf Howard, a chemist aboard Discovery, Robert Scott's ship. Like the photograph above, some of Hurley's images were superimposed in the dark room after the trip. During the trip, Hurley took along 120 film, 6 x 9, and some color film with him on the expedition. Most of the photos we see
today are from 6" x 9" inch glass plates; Hurley took 600 of them on the expedition.
 
Does Hurley's post -processing make his images falsehoods? Some believe that photographs offer truth. This idea, that photographs embody a perfect form of truth, even a divine one, emerged in early 1839 after Louis J.M. Daguerre announced photography to the public, and in April 1839, the New York Times writers speculated on a photograph's power to tell the literal truth.

Hurley's part of the Endurance expedition is a compelling story. It is told and retold, with each decade, because is tells of triumph over disaster. The images Hurley created are a vital part of this story and its expanding myth. Despite alterations, they convey a deep truth about human nature. They are mythologically true.

THE EPIC
  
Frank Hurley's images, and artist George Marston's oil paintings, tell a story of fortitude and great leadership under pressures to survive in harsh conditions. 

Today, we think of the Endurance story as an epic survival adventure, and we forget that the photograph are not 100% accurate because the truth they do tell is so compelling. Survival against impossible odds is what we remember. Frank Hurley' photographs command us to suspend disbelief because we marvel at his survival, fortitude, and ability to capture details of these men's lives.


THE LONG STORY IN SHORT:

Through the Antarctic winter of 1915, after 326 days trapped in the ice, Endurance was crushed in the melting spring ice. The 28-man crew lived for five months on the ice, then made a perilous seven-day journey to the nearest land mass, where they were left by Shackleton and two others, who went for help.

BOTTOM LINE

Trust the photographer. Critiquing a composite image for not being straight from the camera goes beyond pessimism to a distasteful world view of mistrusting photographers. It matters that Hurley told the story well with skilled photography. The alterations he did are dwarfed by the power of the epic. Recently, the award-winning photographer Donald Weber got this idea across in a New York Times article:  

"If a story wants to be told in staged photographs, so be it. If the story wants to be told in reportage, so be it. The point is, the form is decidedly irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is how the author has decided to engage you, the viewer of the image."
 ~ Donald Weber

Hurley's photographs have engaged us since he took them in 1914. His motto, "Near enough is not good enough," was etched into the woodwork near the ceiling of his dark room and Hurley was renown for his physical risks to get a dramatic shot. On top of the Endurance mast, he used a "selfie stick," putting his Kodak Vest Pocket camera on a pole, and braced the shot as he stood in the crows nest. His collection contains 10,999 glass negatives, gelatin negatives, color transparencies, lantern slides, and stereographs from 1910 to 1962.

Now, that's Slow Photography at its finest.

Often, these days, when we see a photograph, we ask "was it staged?" Sure, photographs can lie: they are selected, framed, converted,  saturated, sharpened, cropped, cloned, multiply-exposed.  We always have our doubts about them.

This does not means that photographers lie. Most are ethical. What matters now is that we trust photographers. What matters is how photographers command us to look, and that they inspire our imagination. The intention is vital, the aesthetic is irrelevant.



RECOVERED FROM ICE, LOST AT SEA

In the Fall of 2015, a group of Cellulose nitrate negatives, taken most likely from the deck of the supply ship Aurora, a 165 foot long were uncovered. For 100 years, they were frozen in solid Antarctic ice. We can view them, thanks to work by conservators at the Antarctic Heritage Trust and its director Nigel Watson. 

Frank Hurley photograph of the Aurora, from a cavern in the wall of the shelf-ice of the Mertz Glacier Tongue, Commonwealth Bay, Australasian Antarctic Expedition, December 1913.

These 22 negatives were exposed, and unprocessed (http://www.nzaht.org/AHT/antarctic-photos/). Hopefully, their photographer will be revealed, and they can be added to the story told by the dramatic images by Frank Hurley of the Ross Party's expedition.
The photographs may have been left in Captain Scott’s hut by Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party. This expedition was stranded when in May,1915, the ship Aurora was trapped in pack ice and then blown off its anchorage, Aurora was trapped in the ice for almost a year and drifted about 1600 nautical miles, unable to resupply Ernest Shackleton's ship, the Endurance. Years later, the Aurora was lost at sea in 1917, with her life buoy as the only trace of her left. But someone left these negatives behind.

Frank Hurley left behind a legacy of authentic adventure. Today we take Hurley's work as authentic, because his 11,000 photographs show us unique treasures and moments from our collective past. This is their authenticity. 

FRANK HURLEY, Photographing with a glass plate camera.