On Ernest Shackleton’s third Antarctic expedition in 1914, his ship, the Endurance, became trapped in the pack ice.  Held fast for over 9 months, it was eventually crushed by the ice and sank.  After surviving for five months in makeshift camps on the ice, Shackleton’s men rowed to the remote Elephant Island.  From there, with five other men, Shackleton sailed for help in one of the ship’s lifeboats, the James Caird, to South Georgia.  This journey, of about 800 miles and across some of the worst seas in the world, remains one of the most remarkable open boat journeys ever made.  Against the odds, Shackleton reached South Georgia, and after some setbacks was eventually able to get back to Elephant Island to rescue the crew of the Endurance.

Frank Hurley, an Australian, was the expedition’s photographer and a pioneer in the emerging world of photo-journalism.  Greenstreet, First Officer on the Endurance, called him “a warrior with his camera who would go anywhere or do anything to get a picture”.  Hurley’s photographs form the visual narrative of an epic journey, capturing new and amazing landscapes in which a great human drama is played out.

The aim of the lecture is to capture Hurley’s achievements as a photographer of the Antarctic in the first flush of human contact when it was still essentially terra incognita.

'Endurance 6'  Picture Credit: Frank Hurley. In Public Domain