100-Year-Old Box of Negatives Discovered in Antarctica

CENTURY OLD ANTARCTIC IMAGES DISCOVERED IN CAPTAIN SCOTT’S HUT Photographic negatives left a century ago in Captain Scott’s last expedition base at Cape Evans have been discovered and conserved by New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust. The negatives were found in expedition photographer Herbert Ponting’s darkroom and have been painstakingly conserved revealing never before seen Antarctic images.

 The Trust’s conservation specialists discovered the clumped together cellulose nitrate negatives in a small box as part of the Ross Sea Heritage Restoration Project which has seen more than 10,000 objects conserved at Scott’s Cape Evans hut. The negatives were removed from Antarctica by the Trust earlier this year. Detailed conservation treatment back in New Zealand separating the negatives has revealed twenty-two images. The photographs are from Ernest Shackleton’s 1914-1917 Ross Sea Party, which spent time living in Scott’s hut after being stranded on Ross Island when their ship blew out to sea. [via nzaht.org]

*Click on images for larger view*

Alexander Stevens on the deck of the Aurora, McMurdoSound, Antarctica. All images via the Antarctic Heritage Trust.



The cellulose nitrate negatives. found blocked together. The 22 cellulose nitrate negatives were, the Trust believes, left there by Shackleton’s Ross Sea Party, which became stranded on Ross Island when their ship blew out to sea during a blizzard.  


Iceberg and land, Ross Island., Antarctica.

Photo of Alexander Stevens, chief scientist and geologist on-board the Aurora. Shell Benzine cases on the left. Cellulose nitrate processed sheet film negative, found in Captain Scott's 1911 expedition base, Cape Evans, Antarctica, by Antarctic Heritage Trust (NZ) conservators. Photo taken by Ernest Shackleton's Ross Sea Party 1914-1917. 

Video about New Zealand’s Antarctic Heritage Trust.


Superhuman effort isn't worth a damn unless it achieves results.
~ Ernest Shackleton 
Find out more about Shackleton's truly epic adventure:

Photographer Profile ~ "The Mad Photographer" Frank Hurley

In 1917 James Francis Hurley (1885-1962) became the first official photographer to the Australian Imperial Forces. When he arrived at the Western Front his rank was honorary captain, but the troops, seeing how he took risks to get his pictures, dubbed him “the mad photographer”.

"To get war pictures of striking interest and sensation is like attempting the impossible," Hurley wrote in September 1917. 

Hurley was an outstanding photographer. He had already earned a reputation as an tough adventurer, when he took part in the Endurance Trans-Antarctic Expedition led by explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton. Lionel Greenstreet, First Officer of the Endurance, said of him: “Hurley is a warrior with his camera. He would go anywhere or do anything to get a picture.” He was renowned in his native Australia, Frank Hurley’s photography should be more widely known. A brilliant technician, extraordinarily brave and physically hardy (he plunged into Antarctic waters to retrieve negatives lost to the sea during his trip with Shackleton)

Hurley was a strong defender of pictorialism – the idea that photographs should express ideas, tell stories and excite emotions in much the same way as paintings – and finally he began to manipulate war pictures. Some of his most famous battle scenes are in fact composites of several negatives, which has affected his standing as a documentary photographer.  Hurley’s frustration at risking his life continually to get pictures that did not fully represent the scenes that he saw led him to the highly controversial practice of montaging his photographs to create composite battle scenes.

 

Frank Hurley

Frank Hurley, The Battle of the Menin Road, 1917/18

 

 

Frank Hurley

Hurley in the rigging photographing the crew.

The brave crew of the ship Endurance

 Midwinter’s day meal celebrating the return of the sun (June 22, 1915)

 

Hurley high in the rigging recording images (January 6, 1915)

 Endurance forced out of the ice flow under extreme pressure (October 18, 1915)

 

Dogs watching Endurance break up (November 1, 1915)

Surveying the last remnants of Endurance (November 8, 1915)

Frank Hurley from Michael McMenomy on Vimeo.