These are Frank Hurley’s famous early colour photographs of Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ill-fated ‘Endurance’ voyage, as part of the British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-1917. Hurley was the official photographer on the expedition.
Early in 1915, their ship ‘Endurance’ became inexorably trapped in the Antarctic ice. Hurley managed to salvage the photographic plates by diving into mushy ice-water inside the sinking ship in October 1915.
- State Library of New South Wales
Amazing. I believe these are Finlay plates instead of the usual Autochrome. Wonder if the films survived too.
Cool! i remember when i was in seventh grade, i did a report on Shackleton
Films – actually, some of the film survived, I think – I’ve seen the imax shackleton movie and I remember it including some original footage of the ship finally being crushed by the ice. This one: http://main.wgbh.org/imax/shackleton/
More pictures at a Kodak digital exhibit. There were even some movies that survived.
Also, it blows my mind that these men aren’t wearing gloves in any pictures. Brrrrr.
There’s a documentary film called The Endurance that tells the story of this voyage and showcases many of the films and stills. The most amazing part is that despite being stranded, not a man was lost on the voyage. Of course, the sad follow-up is that many of them immediately died in WWI upon their return.
But the amazing part of the story is that they all survived the ordeal. Shackleton brought them all back ALIVE.
Are these actually colour film plates? I’ve only seen shots from the expedition in black and white, these look hand tinted to me.
It is really a wonderful collection.