James Francis "Frank" Hurley (15 October 1885 – 16 January 1962) was an Australian photographer, cinematographer of documentary films, and director of drama feature films. He participated in a number of expeditions to Antarctica and served as an official war photographer with Australian forces during both world wars. He was the official photographer for the Australasian Antarctic Expedition (1911–14) led by Douglas Mawson, the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–16 led by Ernest Shackleton, and BANZARE (1929–31), again led by Mawson.

His artistic style produced many memorable images. He also used staged scenes, composites, and photographic manipulation.

Early life and education

Frank Hurley was born on 15 October 1885, the third of five children to parents Edward and Margaret Hurley and was raised in Glebe, a suburb of Sydney, Australia. He ran away from home at 14 to work as a fitter's handyman at the Lithgow steel mill, and then served an apprenticeship in engineering until he was 18.

He bought his first camera from the foreman at the steel mill for 15 shillings, which he paid for at the rate of a shilling per week. He taught himself photography and soon bought other cameras.

Antarctic expeditions

thumb|Ice forming on rocks, [[Cape Denison, Antarctica, 1912]]

During his lifetime, Hurley spent more than four years in Antarctica.

At the age of 23, in 1908, Hurley learned that Australian geologist and explorer Douglas Mawson was planning an expedition to Antarctica. In 1911, fellow Sydneysider Henri Mallard recommended Hurley for the position of official photographer to Mawson's Australasian Antarctic Expedition—ahead of himself. 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.

thumb|[[List of members of the Australasian Antarctic expedition|Harold Hamilton hand-netting from , a photo by Hurley ]]

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 of Xavier Mertz, and as a result Hurley made a second trip at the end of 1913 to pick up the remaining party. On this trip he took another series of photos before returning in early 1914.

Mawson and Hurley were horrified at the widespread killing of seals and whales by sealers and whalers, and subsequently used their influence to attempt to bring the penguin oil industry on Macquarie Island to a halt. The island was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1933, and in 1997 was listed as a World Heritage Site. The film was restored by the British Film Institute in 1996 as South: Sir Ernest Shackleton's Glorious Epic of the Antarctic, with a digitally-remastered version re-released in 2022.

thumb|Hurley photographing under the bow of , 1915

Hurley produced many pioneering colour images of the expedition using the then-popular Paget process of colour photography. He took photos in South Georgia in 1917. He later compiled his records into a documentary film released in 1919 as In the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice. In 1996 the silent version was restored as a standalone film titled South: Sir Ernest Shackleton's Glorious Epic of the Antarctic. 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 with Mickey Mouse and penguins listening to a gramophone in order to appeal to children. 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 produce composite 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.

Some of his most well-known photographs were of the Battle of Passchendaele in the latter half of 1917.

Composite photography

Printed reproductions of a composite image created by Hurley and two of the photographs on which it was based.

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.

<gallery mode="packed" heights="150">

File:Episode after Battle of Zonnebeke 1918 Hurley restoration.jpg|Composite photograph, Battle of Zonnebeke, Belgium, 1917

File:Scout planes 1917-18 SLNSW FL520610.jpg|Shrapnel bursts among scout planes, France, 1917–1918, used in composite

File:Over the top Hurley 1917 SLNSW FL520621.jpg|Over the top, Zonnebeke, 1917,used in composite

File:Frank Hurley composite image and its components -- the raid (over the top).tif|Printed outline of composite </gallery>

World War Two

thumb|Hurley (right) discusses photographic opportunities for the forthcoming [[battle of Bardia in Egypt, 1940.]]

Hurley again worked as an official photographer during the Second World War. He was employed by the Australian Department of Information as head of the Photographic Unit from September 1940 until early 1943, based in Cairo, Egypt. He took the only film of the initial victory against the Italians at Sidi Barrani in December 1940, which was given to Cinesound and Movietone News for global release. He also covered the Battle of Bardia and the Siege of Tobruk in 1941, and both of the battles at El Alamein in 1942. Several volumes of his War Diaries cover this period.

In early 1943, the AIF 9th Division was recalled to Australia to fight the Japanese forces in the Pacific 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 the British Ministry of Information. In this capacity, he travelled a reported , covering the region from Libya to Persia, making regular items for War Pictorial News and two-reel features. He photographed two conferences of leaders at Cairo and Tehran 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 for The Road to Russia (1944); A Day in the Life of a King (1944); possibly the first film of the Marsh Arabs (an indigenous people of southern Iraq), Garden of Eden (1945); and one other feature about Tehran itself. Other features of this period include Cairo (1944), and The Holy Land (1945).

Hurley returned to Australia in September 1946. landing in Darwin.

Hurley wrote a book based on his 1921 film Pearls and Savages, which he wrote in ten days and was published and distributed within three weeks in New York City.

Hurley made several documentaries throughout his career, most notably Pearls and Savages (1921), which he directed and produced. This film was the result of extensive surveying, photographic, and scientific work carried out by Hurley on an expedition to New Guinea, using two seaplanes provided by Lebbeus Hordern.

Personal life

Hurley married Antoinette Rosalind Leighton on 11 April 1918. The couple had four children: identical twin daughters, Adelie (later a press photographer) and Toni, one son, Frank, and youngest daughter Yvonne.

Hurley was very resourceful, and acquired a reputation as a daredevil, for taking risks in the pursuit of a good shot.

Death and legacy

Hurley died of cardiac infarction on 16 January 1962 in Collaroy Plateau, New South Wales.

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 the sub-Antarctic islands from exploitation.

  • Strike Me Lucky (1934) – cinematographer
  • Grandad Rudd (1935) – cinematographer
  • Tall Timber (1937) – original story; greatly re-written
  • A Nation is Built (1937) – director
  • 40,000 Horsemen (1940) – cinematographer

See also

  • Photography in Australia

Footnotes

References

Sources

Further reading

  • Dixon Robert (2012).Photography, early cinema and colonial modernity : Frank Hurley's synchronised lecture entertainments.
  • Dixon, Robert, and Lee, Christopher, eds. (2011).The Diaries of 1912–1941.
  • Frank Hurley at IMDB