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Frank Hurley
1885 - 17 January 1962
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Biography
At the age of 14, Frank Hurley ran away from home and went to work on the Sydney docks. At the age of 17 he bought his first camera, learnt the technical aspects of photography and set himself up in the postcard business. In 1910, Douglas Mawson planned an Antarctic expedition, and Frank Hurley was selected as the expedition photographer. In 1911 Hurley left to Antarctica for the first time.
Hurley's photographic style was very creative, and he had the ability to make ordinary things look interesting. This ability lead to him soon becaming famous in Australia and the UK.
Hurley also worked with movie cameras. Probably his most famous movie was "Home of the Blizzard", and it was this movie that got him hired by Shackleton for the famous Endurance expedition. During the Endurance expedition he is said to have gone to great lengths to get the image he wanted, even climbing masts, trekking across unstable ice etc. If it was not for the daring feat of diving into the icy waters to retrieve his film, the Endurance expedition photographs would have been lost to the sea when the ship sank.
After the Endurance, Hurley served as a frontline photographer in World War I, having been awarded the honorary rank of captain in the Australian Imperial Force. Hurley took some of the war's only known colour photographs.
Hurley died at home at the age of 76, on 16 January 1962.
Te Papa Whale exhibition in Washington, DC