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Well Known Polar Photographers

Herbert Ponting(top)

One of the most well known polar photographers (or ‘camera artist’ as he liked to be known) was Herbert Ponting. Ponting travelled the world taking photographs of different cultures and natural wonders. His only polar journey was to the Antarctic with Captain Robert Falcon Scott, as the official photographer on the British Antarctic Expedition 1910-13. Ponting’s dedication to his art was unwavering. Whilst journeying south Ponting suffered terribly from seasickness, but this did not stop him, as Scott recorded in his diary:

“Ponting cannot face meals but sticks to his work constantly being sick … with a developing dish in one hand, and an ordinary basin in the other”

However, Ponting never lost his enthusiasm, and as a result a new verb came into use - ‘to ‘pont’ was coined when Ponting would ask the men to pose in uncomfortable positions in the cold for long periods of time to allow him to get the perfect shot. Due to the long exposure times most of Ponting’s photographs would require the people in them to ‘pont’. In total Ponting took 25,000 feet of film and 2000 negatives during the expedition, at times becoming so absorbed in his work that he did not notice what was going on around him. Whilst his photographic dedication may have irritated some of his fellow men, Ponting produced remarkable photographs depicting the Antarctic landscape and the life of the expedition. Today the photographs he produced are still some of the most well known images of the Antarctic.

In addition, an official photographer such as Ponting would play a vital role in an expedition’s entertainments. Before his departure Ponting had prepared some of this photographs from previous travels as lantern slides. This enabled him to give illustrated lectures to the men on topics such as Japan; such lectures proved to be very popular. Scott recognised the importance of Ponting on the expedition:

“Ponting would have been a great asset to our party, if only on account of his lectures, but his value as pictorial recorder of events becomes daily more apparent. No expedition has ever been illustrated so extensively, and the only difficulty will be to select from the countless subjects that have been recorded by his camera”

After the tragic conclusion to the expedition Ponting spent the rest of his life delivering illustrated lectures and producing films about the expedition.

Frank Hurley (top)

Frank Hurley was another influential photographer of the heroic age. Hurley had already been on Mawson’s 1911-14 Antarctic Expedition when he travelled with Shackleton on the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1914-16 as the expedition’s official photographer. During this voyage the expedition ship Endurance was crushed by the ice and sank. Hurley took some striking photographs of the ship’s demise and the men’s attempts to reach safety. Using magnesium flashes Hurley was able to take pictures of the ship crushed by the ice at night; this gives a wonderful contrast between the darkness of the night sky and the brightness of the ice. Hurley recorded the incident saying:

“During the night take flashlight of the ship beset by pressure necessitating some 20 flashes, one behind each salient pressure hummock, no less than 10 flashes being required to satisfactorily illuminate the ship herself. Half blinded after the successive flashes, I lost my bearings amid the hummocks, bumping shins against the projecting ice points and stumbling onto deep snowdrifts &c. The negative when developed proved satisfactory and well repaid the cold endeavour”

Like Ponting, Hurley often forgot to balance his own safety with his desire to get the perfect image. In his book about the expedition Hurley recorded a near miss:

“In my keenness to secure records of these efforts and of the ship charging the ice, I had a narrow escape from being crushed to death. Putting my camera in a waterproof case, I stood on a floe immediately in the vessel’s path” (Agonauts of the South)

The images Hurley recorded were what made an unbelievable story believable, but such images were almost never seen as Hurley’s negatives initially went down with the ship.

Hurley returned to the ship and as able to chisel through the ice into what had been his darkroom. He was able to rescue some of the zinc-lined galvanised tins in which he stored his negatives, most of which were still unharmed. In total he rescued over 500 negatives, however, as the men had to man-haul their belongings over the ice they had to leave behind anything that was not truly necessary. Hurley and Shackleton came to a compromise, allowing Hurley to take 150 negatives with him. These negatives were stored in cases which were soldiered shut to protect them on their hazardous journey to safety. The remaining 400 negatives were smashed, so Hurley could not be tempted to try and return for any. Hurley also had to get rid of his heavy photographic equipment, leaving him with only a Vest Pocket Kodak camera and three rolls of film. Using this camera he recorded the men’s attempts to reach safety, however, in addition he also helped with the men’s attempts at survival, designing and constructing a stove and bilge pump. The bilge pump was fitted to the modified whale boat James Caird, in which Shackleton and five others were finally able to sail to South Georgia, to raise the alarm and bring rescue.

Shortly after returning to safety Hurley was again to journey southwards, returning to South Georgia. It had been decided that there were not enough photographs of wildlife for a published account and so Hurley returned to the island to photograph the indigenous fauna. In addition he recorded film footage, which was added to footage recorded in Antarctica to make a film entitled ‘In the Grip of the Polar Ice’ which was a commercial success.

On his return Hurley became an official photographer of the First World War. Here the authenticity of his photographs started to be questioned. Hurley had never made any secret of the fact that some of his images were composites. He would often combine elements from separate images to produce the ‘perfect’ image. He did not regard photography as a real representation of the world and so did not believe there was any issue with altering his negatives. He often would insert elements to add to the drama of the image so that the image would tell the story he wanted. We know that some of the images from the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition are composites.

Learning Photography at the Poles(top)

During the heroic age it was common for expeditions to have an official photographer, but some of the members of the expedition would take photographs as well. This was necessary, as often the photographer would not have the opportunity to go right out into the field as the men would. For example Scott and Shackleton’s furthest south photographs would have been set up and taken by one of the small team who were marching southwards. Many of the men were also keen to learn how to take photographs; it was a relatively new science and a way of passing the time.

In Ponting’s published account of his expedition with Scott, he recounts an interesting tale in which he taught Scott and some of the other men how to take photographs. As Ponting recorded in his 1921 book The Great White South, “Scott’s zeal [to take photographs] outran his capacity.”

“He would come back as pleased as a boy, telling me quite excitedly he had got some splendid things, and together we would begin to develop his plates - six in a dish. When five minutes or more had elapsed and no sign of a latent image appeared on any of them, I knew something was wrong, and a conversation would follow, something in this wise:

‘Are you quite sure you did everything correctly?’

‘My dear fellow’ (a great expression this of Scott’s), ‘I’m absolutely certain I did. I’m sure I made no mistake.’

‘Did you put the plate in the holder?’ ‘Yes’

‘Did you draw the slide?’ ‘Yes’

‘Did you set the shutter?’ ‘Yes’

‘Did you take the cap off the lens?’ ‘Yes’

Then he would rub his head, in that way he had, and admit:

‘No! Good heavens! I forgot. I could have sworn I had forgotten nothing.’

The he would fill up his holders again, and be off once more.” (1921:170)

The images which form the Freeze Frame collection stretch from beautifully composed, perfectly captured striking images, to ones of geological specimens, to others which are out of focus or have a finger over the lens! This highlights the fact that not everybody is a natural photographer. Our images are made up of those taken by professional photographers and those by expedition members who wished to learn a new skill, or merely wanted to take their own photographs, as many of us do when we go somewhere new today.

Table of Contents

Well Known Polar Photographers

Herbert Ponting(top)

Frank Hurley (top)

Learning Photography at the Poles(top)

Further Reading(top)