Frank Hurley | |
|---|---|
 Hurley around 1914 | |
| Birth name | James Francis Hurley |
| Born | (1885-10-15)15 October 1885 Glebe, New South Wales, Australia |
| Died | 16 January 1962(1962-01-16) (aged 76) Collaroy Plateau, New South Wales, Australia |
| Allegiance | Australia |
| Branch | First Australian Imperial Force Australian Army |
| Service years | 1917–1918, 1940 |
| Rank | Captain |
| Unit | 1st Division (Australia) |
| Conflicts | Battle of Passchendaele and theBattle of Bardia |
| Children | Four, includingAdelie Hurley |
| Other work | 1908–1948 |
James Francis "Frank"HurleyOBE (15 October 1885 – 16 January 1962) was an Australian photographer,cinematographer ofdocumentary films, and director of drama feature films. He participated in a number of expeditions toAntarctica and served as an officialwar photographer with Australian forces during bothworld wars. He was the official photographer for theAustralasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14) led byDouglas Mawson, theImperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–16 led byErnest Shackleton, andBANZARE (1929–31), again led by Mawson.
His artistic style produced many memorable images. He also used staged scenes,composites, and photographic manipulation.
Frank Hurley was born on 15 October 1885, the third of five children to parents Edward and Margaret Hurley and was raised inGlebe, a suburb of Sydney, Australia.[1] He ran away from home at 14 to work as afitter's handyman at theLithgow steel mill, and then served an apprenticeship in engineering until he was 18.[2]
He bought his first camera from the foreman at the steel mill for 15shillings, which he paid for at the rate of a shilling per week. He taught himself photography and soon bought other cameras.[2] He began his photographic career at the age of 20, working for a postcard company in Sydney.[3]
During his lifetime, Hurley spent more than four years in Antarctica.[4]
At the age of 23, in 1908, Hurley learned that Australian geologist and explorerDouglas Mawson was planning an expedition to Antarctica. In 1911, fellow SydneysiderHenri Mallard recommended Hurley for the position of official photographer to Mawson'sAustralasian Antarctic Expedition—ahead of himself.[a] Hurley asserts in his biography that he then cornered Mawson as he was making his way to their interview on a train, using the advantage to talk his way into the job.[2][b] Mawson was persuaded, while Mallard, who was the manager of Harringtons, a local Kodak franchise, to which Hurley was in debt, provided photographic equipment.[citation needed]
Although the official photographer there were some 19 other photographers who recorded the expedition which was divided across the three separate locations. Hurley was with Mawson's group at Cape Denison where the weather was so bad that Hurley claimed he had only ten absolutely calm days scattered throughout the year 1912–1913, and this was when he took many of his photos, making 82 photos on the first three days of September 1912.[5]
.jpg)
The expedition departed in 1911 and Hurley returned with most of the party in early 1913. However Mawson was left behind as he was late returning from his sledging party, after the death ofXavier Mertz, and as a result Hurley made a second trip at the end of 1913 to pick up remaining party. On this trip he took another series of photos before returning in early 1914.[5] Some of his photos included advertising, funds had to be raised to fund the expeditions after the event through film screenings, books and photographs.[6]
Before his return in 1913, footage attributed to him was released in cinemas. Now often referred to asHome of the Blizzard, thissilent film has a complicated provenance, and it is no longer known which reels were shown in the 1913 cinema showing. This version of the film was released in the UK asLife in the Antarctic.[7][8]
Mawson and Hurley were horrified at the widespread killing of seals and whales bysealers andwhalers, and subsequently used their influence to attempt to bring the penguin oil industry onMacquarie Island to a halt. The island was declared awildlife sanctuary in 1933, and in 1997 was listed as aWorld Heritage Site.[6]
Hurley was the official photographer onSir Ernest Shackleton'sImperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, hired on condition that he would make a film recording events on the expedition.[2] The group set out in 1914 and was marooned until August 1916, after their ship was crushed by ice. Hurley's photographic kit for the expedition included thecinematograph machine, plate still camera, and several smallerKodak cameras, along with various lenses, tripods, and developing equipment, most of which had to be abandoned with the loss of their shipEndurance in 1915. He kept only a hand-heldVest Pocket Kodak camera and three rolls of film and for the rest of the expedition, he shot just 38 images. He also selected and saved 120 of hisglass-plate negatives, smashing about 400 remaining ones.[1] Some of the plates from the expedition are now part of theState Library of New South Wales collection.[9] A documentarysilent film was assembled from his footage, first released asIn the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice in 1919.[10][11][12] The film was restored by theBritish Film Institute in 1996 asSouth: Sir Ernest Shackleton's Glorious Epic of the Antarctic, with a digitally-remastered version re-released in 2022.[13]
.jpg)
Hurley produced many pioneering colour images of the expedition using the then-popularPaget process of colour photography. He took photos inSouth Georgia in 1917.[citation needed] He later compiled his records into a documentary film released in 1919 asIn the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice.[14][15][16] In 1996 the silent version was restored as a standalone film titledSouth: Sir Ernest Shackleton's Glorious Epic of the Antarctic.[17] His footage was also used in the 2001IMAX filmShackleton's Antarctic Adventure.[citation needed]
Hurley returned to the Antarctic in 1929 and 1931, on Mawson'sBritish Australian and New Zealand Antarctic Research Expedition (known as BANZARE). Footage taken by Hurley was commercially as a silent film in 1930 asSouthward Ho With Mawson, which was re-released asSiege of the South in 1931, this time with asoundtrack added.[8] Takings fromSiege of the South contributed to defray the costs of the expedition,[18] and schoolchildren's attendance contributed significantly to the takings.Union Theatres insisted on Hurley travelling with the film to promote it, and Hurley was keen to make the film a box-office success. He even added scenes withMickey Mouse and penguins listening to agramophone in order to appeal to children.[6]
In 1917, Hurley joined theAustralian Imperial Force (AIF) as an honorary captain, and captured many stunning battlefield scenes during theThird Battle of Ypres. In keeping with his adventurous spirit, he took considerable risks to photograph his subjects, also producing many rare panoramic and colour photographs of the conflict. Hurley kept a diary from 1917 to 1918, chronicling his time as a war photographer.[19] In it, he described his commitment "to illustrate to the public the things our fellows do and how war is conducted", and his short-lived resignation in October 1917 when he was ordered not to producecomposite images—a practice that was especially popular among professional photographers at the time and one that he believed could portray the disgust and horror that he felt during the war in such a way that his audience would feel it too.[20]
Some of his most well-known photographs were of theBattle of Passchendaele in the latter half of 1917.[3] After conflict occurred between Hurley and official war historianCharles Bean about Hurley's use of composite images,[21] Hurley was dispatched toPalestine in late 1917.[3]
His period with the AIF ended in March 1918.[22]
Printed reproductions of a composite image created by Hurley and two of the photographs on which it was based.[23]Hurley argued with superiors over the ethics of compositing photos, arguing that war was conducted on such a vast scale that it was impossible to capture the essence of it in a single negative. Some have considered the practice as an art form; others have argued that history demands the plain, simple truth. For the 1918 London exhibition,Australian War Pictures and Photographs, he employed composites for photomurals to convey drama of the war on a scale otherwise not possible using the technology available. This brought Hurley into conflict with the AIF on the grounds that montage diminished documentary value. He wrote that he would dress in civilian clothes and eavesdrop on soldiers who were visiting his exhibitions; he concluded that the composites were justified by the favourable comments they attracted.[22][c]
Charles Bean, official war historian, labelled Hurley's composite images "fake".[21][24]
.jpg)
Hurley again worked as an official photographer during theSecond World War. He was employed by theAustralian Department of Information as head of the Photographic Unit from September 1940 until early 1943, based inCairo, Egypt. He took the only film of the initial victory against the Italians atSidi Barrani in December 1940, which was given toCinesound andMovietone News for global release. He also covered theBattle of Bardia and theSiege of Tobruk in 1941, and both of thebattles at El Alamein in 1942.[25] Several volumes of his War Diaries cover this period.[26]
In early 1943, theAIF 9th Division was recalled to Australia to fight theJapanese forces in thePacific theatre. Hurley resigned his position, but remained in the Middle East, and accepted the position of Middle East Director of Army Features and Propaganda Films with theBritish Ministry of Information. In this capacity, he travelled a reported 200,000 mi (320,000 km), covering the region fromLibya toPersia, making regular items forWar Pictorial News and two-reel features. He photographed two conferences of leaders at Cairo andTehran in 1943. Only one diary volume survives for this period. It includes a summary of his 1943 work, and covers a four-month journey from Cairo to Tehran commencing in February 1944, during which he took footage forThe Road to Russia (1944);A Day in the Life of a King (1944); possibly the first film of theMarsh Arabs (an indigenous people of southern Iraq),Garden of Eden (1945); and one other feature about Tehran itself. Other features of this period includeCairo (1944), andThe Holy Land (1945).[27]
Hurley returned to Australia in September 1946.[28][3]
After returning from Mawson's first expedition in 1913, Hurley travelled toArnhem Land with Frank Birtle to film theAboriginal people in northern Australia.[2]
In 1919 Hurley joinedRoss Macpherson Smith when he arrived in Australia, writing a book about him and producing a film of his flight,[2] calledThe Ross Smith Flight.[21] Smith, with his brotherKeith and two other men, were the first Australians in a British aircraft tofly from Great Britain to Australia,[29] landing inDarwin.[30]
Hurley wrote a book based on his 1921 filmPearls and Savages, which he wrote in ten days and was published and distributed within three weeks inNew York City.[2]
In the early 1920s he undertook a flight with Jimmy Moir and Harold Owens in an attempt to break a record on a flight from Australia to London, but the plane crashed inAthens, Greece.[2][21]
Hurley also used afilm camera to record a range of experiences including the Antarctic expeditions (see above); the building of theSydney Harbour Bridge; and war in the Middle East during World War II. The camera was aDebrie Parvo L 35 mm hand-crank camera made in France. This camera is now in the collection of theNational Museum of Australia.[31]
Hurley made several documentaries throughout his career, most notablyPearls and Savages (1921), which he directed and produced.[32] This film was the result of extensive surveying, photographic, and scientific work carried out by Hurley on an expedition toNew Guinea, using two seaplanes provided by Lebbeus Hordern.[2] After claiming to have discovered one of theLost Tribes of Israel in New Guinea, the film garnered much publicity inNew York City, andPutnam's asked him to write a book. Hurley wrote a book of the same name in ten days, which was published and distributed within three weeks. The film was very successful in London, leading to entrepreneurSir Oswald Stoll contracting Hurley to produce two dramatic films in New Guinea. Hurley assembled a cast and took them from London to New Guinea[2] in 1925. Hurley was refused entrance toPapua, partly due to his sensationalistic stories of head-hunters, but also due to his allegedly improper methods used to gather many artefacts for theAustralian Museum in Sydney. The crew relocated toDutch New Guinea to make the dramaticfeature filmJungle Woman (released May 1926). Hurley then madeThe Hound of the Deep, which was made for Stoll onThursday Island and released in 1926.[21]
He worked as cinematographer forCinesound Productions in Sydney for most of the 1930s,[3] where his best known film credits includeThe Squatter's Daughter (1933),The Silence of Dean Maitland (1934) andGrandad Rudd (1935).[citation needed]
Hurley wrote the original story and script for the filmTall Timber (1937), but it was greatly rewritten.[33]
Hurley married Antoinette Rosalind Leighton on 11 April 1918.[21] The couple had four children: identical twin daughters, Adelie (later a press photographer) and Toni, one son, Frank, and youngest daughter Yvonne.[9]
Hurley was very resourceful, and acquired a reputation as a daredevil, for taking risks in the pursuit of a good shot.[6]
Hurley died ofcardiac infarction on 16 January 1962 inCollaroy Plateau, New South Wales.[21]
His photographic work influenced later generations of photographers.[3]
Several of his films have been restored, with some regarded as classics inAustralian cinema.[7][8] He also published many books, and his diaries were published in 2011.[34]
Along with Mawson's and other books produced about Antarctica, Hurley's photographs and films helped to raise public awareness of the importance of preserving Antarctica and thesub-Antarctic islands from exploitation.[6]
These images were on display at the NFSA in Canberra in 2012 as part of theExtreme Film and Sound exhibition. Prime Possum visited the exhibition and met NFSA curator Morgyn Phillips.
[Per Part 2 of the essay]: An earlier version of this essay was published inJournal of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2007.
An earlier version of this essay was published inJournal of the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2007.
None but those who have endeavoured can realise the insurmountable difficulties of portraying a modern battle by the camera. To include the event on a single negative, I have tried and tried, but the results are hopeless. Now, if negatives are taken of all the separate incidents in the action and combined, some idea may then be gained of what a modern battle looks like.
| Personnel |
| ||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Parties and vessels | |||||||||||
| Places | |||||||||||
| Other | |||||||||||
| Events | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Locations | |||||
| Personnel |
| ||||
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Academics | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
