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.
