Infantry moving froward to take over the front at evening 

First Official Photographer of the Australian Imperial Forces.

An Adventurer

To get war pictures of striking interest and sensation is like attempting the impossible.

~ James Francis Hurley

James Francis “Frank” Hurley was an adventurer.  He is best known as the official photographer on Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition.  The expedition set out in 1914, but was marooned until August 1916.  Hurley had made an earlier journey to Antarctica in 1911 with the Douglas Mawson expedition, and returned to Australia in 1914, only to immediately turn-around to leave with Shackleton.  

During the exhibits, and later as a war photographer, Hurley pioneered a new color image, the Paget process, a method of using two glass plates, one of which was a color screen plate and the other a standard black-and-white negative plate.  

Hurley compiled his photographs from the expedition into a documentary film, South, in 1919.  This footage was later used in the 2001 IMAX film Shackleton’s Antarctic Adventure.

Antarctic scenes

Early Roots

Self Portrait, Frank Hurley

I have lived a life that suited me best. 
I took risks and never regretted them. 
If I could start again, I would do everything in the same way.

Frank Hurley’s early roots go back to his being raised in a small suburb of Sydney.  Born in 1885, he was the middle child in a family of five and at the age of thirteen he ran away from home and found work in a local steel mill.  Two years later he was back home, ready to study.  At seventeen he bought his first camera, a Kodak Box Brownie.  Hurley taught himself photograph and started a semi-successful postcard business.  He gained a reputation for taking chances in order to get a good shoot.  

Hurley has had his critics through the years, but most have been critical of his having staged or manipulated scenes. Nonetheless, many of his photographs are stunning and bring the viewer into emotional contact with the subject or scene.

Honorary Captain

 Life is one long call to conflict....

Hurley, with the honorary rank of captain in the Australian Imperial Force, served as a frontline photographer in World War I. He took some of the war’s only known color photos—“and some,” wrote Alexander, “are small masterpieces of stark, muddy misery.” Later he traveled to Papua New Guinea and Tasmania, where he photographed more in a travelogue style. He produced several books about Australia.

On January 16, 1962, at the age of 76, he came home from an assignment lugging his battered old camera case. He sat down and, uncharacteristically, said he did not feel well. He sat there all night and died next day, leaving behind a wife and three children.

World War I: The Frontline

With the outbreak of World War II, Hurley was given the rank of acting Major to serve as a photographer and cinematographer, gaining an OBE for his work. Frank Hurley used photography to achieve the effect he desired and he was known for his ability to engage the public's imagination. In 1940, he returned to war photography with the Australian Imperial Forces (AIF) in the Middle East and remained over there until 1946.

In his diary entries during 1941 Hurley made frequent references to the Middle Eastern landscape and to the history of the so-called 'Holy Land'. He noted the changes in the cities since his first visit in 1917, his impressions of the progress and management of the war and his observations on the day to day lives of both Arabs and Jews. Thus Hurley's more familiar images of Australian troops in the Middle East, taken during 1941, are mingled with these evocative images of the local people continuing their everyday lives in the midst of war. Given the troubled nature of these regions today Hurley's photographs, taken during the greatest war in history, ironically document a seemingly less divided and tormented Middle East.

On 4 June 1941, he wrote:
This historic field of northern Palestine which has been the battlefield of bygone ages and there the Light Horse put the enemy to flight with the last war is likely to be once again the scene of conflict. At present it all seems so serenely peaceful that were it not for transports and artillery travelling trundling along the roads at mechanised speed one might think all the world at rest and content.

The contrasts of peace and war are very remarkable in this Land of Antiquity. It seems to be a land for reverential reminiscence – its very soil and ancient olive trees exhale the wondrous past and create an atmosphere that makes one ponder with some reverential awe. Here one sees inhabitants that seem to have existed from Bible days – They have not altered their customs nor methods – for why should they in this land so undisturbed by commercial competition. They grow their olives, till the soil as they did thousands of years ago. Shepherd their flocks as in the days of Abraham and seem as changeless as time. Amidst all this comes tanks, mechanised artillery and bombing planes.

Frank Hurley used photography to achieve the effect he desired and he was known for his ability to engage the public's imagination. In 1940, he returned to war photography with the AIF in the Middle East and remained over there until 1946.

In his diary entries during 1941 Hurley made frequent references to the Middle Eastern landscape and to the history of the so-called 'Holy Land'. He noted the changes in the cities since his first visit in 1917, his impressions of the progress and management of the war and his observations on the day to day lives of both Arabs and Jews. Thus Hurley's more familiar images of Australian troops in the Middle East, taken during 1941, are mingled with these evocative images of the local people continuing their everyday lives in the midst of war. Given the troubled nature of these regions today Hurley's photographs, taken during the greatest war in history, ironically document a seemingly less divided and tormented Middle East.