Career

Hurley became interested in photography in his late teens. He purchased a Kodak Box Brownie for 15 shillings and joined Henry Cave in a postcard business in Sydney. Working with Cave, he began to develop a reputation for the highly technical quality of his work. He also gave talks at photographic clubs and held the first exhibition of his work in 1910 at age twenty-five.

Mawson Expedition

In 1911,  Sir Douglas Mawson invited Hurley to be the official photographer on the Australasian Antarctic Expedition. Hurley worked willingly under arduous conditions, taking still photographs and movie films. His cheerful and willing nature made him a popular and valuable team member.

Upon the expedition returning to Sydney in 1914, Hurley quickly assembled his movie footage into a documentary, “Home of the Blizzard”. This was successfully presented to the public in August 1914

“Hurley is a warrior with his camera, and would go anywhere or do anything to get a picture.”

~ Lionel Greenstreet, First Officer of the Expedition Ship Endurance.

Shackelton Expedition

The Shackleton Expedition, also known as the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, was a 1914-1917 Antarctic exploration led by Sir Ernest Shackleton. Their goal was to cross the Antarctic continent from coast to coast via the South Pole and to be the first to do so. However, the expedition, plagued by numerous difficulties and setbacks, never accomplished its goal. These setbacks included being trapped in ice for eleven months before the ship was crushed and sank. Fortunately, the men escaped, however, with limited supplies and only three lifeboats. They then spent the next five months floating on an iceberg before landing on Elephant Island.

On Elephant Island, they established a makeshift camp. The ‘island’ was just a rock in the ocean with a few penguins and seals for food. With winter approaching, the only option was for Shackleton and a small team to go for help. Shackelton decided to attempt the difficult 1200km (800-mile) journey across the Southern Ocean, one of the roughest seas in the world, to South Georgia Island. He chose six men, and they took off in a 22-foot lifeboat while the rest of the team, including Hurley, remained stranded on Elephant Island. Shackelton and the six men arrived at South Georgia Island whaling station 17 days later after dodging pack ice and sailing through a hurricane. They then had to cross forty miles of uncharted mountains.

Rescue

A Chilean trawler with Shackleton on board returned to Elephant Island four months later and rescued the rest of his team. Not one man had been lost. Instead of being regarded as a failure, the expedition was hailed as a triumph of human endurance and perseverance in the face of extreme hardship and danger. The story of the Shackleton Expedition continues to inspire generations. It is widely regarded as one of the greatest survival stories in the history of exploration.

WWI Intervenes

Frank Hurley was the first official photographer of the Australian “Imperial Forces “AIF) during World War I. In 1916 he accompanied the AIF to the Middle East with the rank of honorary Captain. However, the troops dubbed him the “mad photographer” upon seeing the risks he took when capturing images of the Australian troops and the battlefields they fought on.

Hurley’s photographs are an important visual record of the experiences of the Australian soldiers during the war. They helped to build a sense of national identity and pride in the country’s military. Many of his images are now considered iconic and are held in the archives of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, Australia.

Composite Images

Hurley was a strong defender of pictorialism. He believed photographs should express ideas, tell stories, and excite emotions in much the same way as paintings. Subsequently, he began manipulating war pictures. Though not widely known, some of his most famous battle scenes are, in fact, composites of several negatives.

Composite images are created by combining multiple photographs into a single image. Hurley used this technique to create dramatic and visually striking images of the Antarctic and the battlefields of World War I. For example, Hurley used composite images to show the destruction of the Endurance during the Shackleton Expedition. He also created composite images of the Australian troops in the trenches during World War I.

Clash of Ideals

Under the direction of official war historian Charles Bean, Hurley’s job was to record the fighting for “propaganda purposes”. However, confronted with the horrors and sheer scale of the battlefields and unable for obvious reasons to photograph out of the trenches, Hurley created composites. He often used multiple photographic negatives to create a single image with heightened drama. While not a new technique, it was such a departure from the literal truth that historian Bean was horrified, and the two clashed bitterly.

As a result, Bean forbade Hurley from publishing his composites. Hurley then approached the chief of the Australian forces, and a compromise was reached. Bean conceded the images could be exhibited, but Hurley had to have captions saying they were composites. However, in later exhibitions and publications, the captions somehow disappeared. This resulted in the public taking all of Hurley’s pictures as accurate. In the images below, Hurley cropped the image to a vertical one and added a new sky, creating a much more powerful image.

“Press photography in this war is such a construction of flimsy fake… That is the last thing a historian wants to build on”.

Charles Bean, Official Australian World War I Historian

In January 1918, Hurley was in Palestine, and he borrowed troopers and officers from General Harry Chauvel and filmed their procession through the newly captured streets of Jerusalem. History records that the Australians took no part in the capture of Jerusalem. Regardless, the film lives on as if to prove they did.

Later Career

In 1918, Hurley held successful exhibitions and lecture tours. Sir Ross Smith, the pioneer aviator, invited Hurley to join him on the final stage of his historic flight from England to Australia, allowing Hurley to film Australia from the air.

From 1920 to 1923, Hurley filmed the Torres Strait Islands and Papua. His film “Pearls and Savages” was a major commercial success. He became the pictorial editor for the Sun newspaper in Sydney in 1927 before joining Mawson again for another antarctic research expedition.

WWII

During WWII, he served again as the official photographer of the AIF in the Middle East. Returning to Australia at the war’s end, he published several books on Australian landscape photography and city portraits. He also worked as a journalist and gave lectures. In his lifetime, he was awarded an OBE, the Polar Medal, and two bars in 1934 for the 1929-1931 Antarctic Expeditions.

Hurley continued to travel up to his death of myocardial infarction in 1962. He was survived by his wife of forty-six years and four children.

Frank Hurley Photography Awards

The Mawson’s Huts Foundation Ltd is a non-profit organization based in Australia. It was established to conserve and protect the huts that Sir Douglas Mawson and his team used during their expedition to Antarctica in the early 20th century. The huts in the Commonwealth Bay region of Antarctica are the only surviving site from an Australian Antarctic expedition. Hurley operated a 1.2m² darkroom in the main hut. They are considered one of Antarctica’s most important historical sites and are protected under the Antarctic Treaty System.

The foundation is dedicated to preserving this piece of Australia’s heritage and maintaining the huts as a site of international significance. It works with the Australian Antarctic Division, the Antarctic Heritage Trust, and other organisations to ensure that the huts are preserved and protected for future generations to enjoy. The foundation raises funds through the Frank Hurley Photography Awards, donations, and sponsorships to support its conservation efforts. It also offers educational programs and other opportunities to learn about and support the huts.

The impact of Frank Hurley’s work on photography and exploration cannot be overstated. His exceptional ability to capture extraordinary moments and push the limits of his craft left an enduring mark on both the artistic and scientific aspects of photography. Even today, his contributions are celebrated and serve as a testament to his incredible talent and adventurous spirit.

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The Early Years

Capa was accused of connections to communists and, in 1930, fled Hungary for Berlin.  There, he enrolled in journalism and political science at Berlin University and worked as a darkroom assistant at Dephot, a German picture agency.

Even as a lowly assistant, his eye for composition became clear to Dephot boss Simon Guttmann and he sent Friedmann to Copenhagen, where the exiled Leon Trotsky was due to speak. Guttmann sent Friedman equipped with a Leica II screw-mount rangefinder to record the event.

Press photographers were banned at the Trotsky rally, but the Leica II was a true pocket camera. Hold one today, and it becomes obvious why it was such a game-changer for the photojournalist in potentially dangerous situations. Friedmann could shoot images covertly and return from Copenhagen with photos that affirmed his talent despite his inexperience. His surreptitious, low-angle shot of Trotsky orating at the podium, his hands locked like talons in front of his face to make a point, became iconic.

Capa and Taro

Following the rise to power of the Nazis, Jews were prohibited from colleges and universities.  Realising it wasn’t safe, as a jew, to remain in Germany, Capa moved to Paris in 1933.  In Paris, he met a fellow war photographer and Jewish refugee Gerda Pohorylle, who had left Germany for the same reason.   The pair dropped their German-Jewish names and assumed the names Robert Capa and Gerda Taro.  In Paris, they shared a darkroom with Henri Cartier-Bresson and Chim (David Seymour), with Capa regularly working as a photojournalist.

The Spanish Civil War

Between 1936 and 1939, Capa made multiple trips to Spain accompanied by Taro to document the Spanish Civil War. During this period, he achieved fame as a war correspondent, with his most famous image, Death of a Loyalist Soldier (1936), stemming from these trips.  The photos were lauded for their grim realism and gave rise to Capa’s most famous quote. 

If your pictures aren’t good enough, then you aren’t close enough.

~Robert Capa~

Doubts of Authenticity

Over three-quarters of a century later, Capa’s Falling Soldier is still regarded as one of the most famous images ever of combat.  The image is also one of the most debated, with many critics claiming it was staged, a practice not uncommon at the time. However, whether this particular image was staged is still unknown.

During a battle in Madrid, an out-of-control tank crashed into the car carrying Taro, mortally wounding her. She was 26 years old. Capa never got over her death, and he vowed never to marry. Nevertheless, in 1938 Capa went to Hankow (now known as Wuhan) to photograph the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion.

World War II

With World War II (WWII) outbreak, Capa again had to move to avoid Nazi persecution. This time, moving to America and as a freelance photographer for LIFE, Time, and other publications.  From 1941 to 1946, Capa worked as a war correspondent, travelling with the U.S. Army; he documented the heavy fighting and subsequent Allied victories in North Africa, Europe, and D-Day in Normandy.

Omaha Beach

Capa was the only photojournalist who landed with the allies at Omaha Beach, Normandy, on D-day. While he was only on the beach for ninety minutes, Capa’s images (taken on Contax Cameras) of the Allied landing became some of the most memorable photos of the war. Once back on the transport ship, he helped load stretchers and photographed the wounded until he collapsed. Capa later woke on a bunk with a piece of paper around his neck: “Exhaustion case. No dog tags.” 

While under constant fire, Capa took 106 pictures that day. However, only 11 survived after a photo lab accident in London. Those images became known as the Magnificent Eleven.

Leipzig

Following D-day, he went to Leipzig, Germany and photographed the battle for a bridge. One of those images caught Raymond. J. Bowman just moments before being killed by sniper fire.  The pair of infantrymen had set up their 30 calibre Browning machine gun on an open balcony to provide cover for the American troops of the 2nd U.S. Infantry Division, advancing over a bridge. This balcony had an unobstructed view of the bridge. However, it also gave a clear view of snipers. The image was later published in Life magazine.

In 2015, the City of Leipzig voted to name the street in which the apartment building is located “Bowmanstraße” in honour of Raymond J. Bowman. As a result, the apartment building is now called Capa House and contains a small memorial with Capa’s photographs and information about Bowman.

Liberation of Italy

In August 1943, he accompanied American troops to Sicily. While there, he documented the suffering of the Sicilians under the constant bombing by Germany. His photographs also depicted their happiness at the arrival of the American soldiers. Capa’s image of a Sicilian peasant indicating the direction in which German troops had gone became famous worldwide and a symbol of the liberation of Italy from the Nazis.

WWII Aftermath

In 1947 Capa travelled to the Soviet Union with his writer friend John Steinbeck, and they collaborated on the book “A Russian Journal”. Capa took photos of war-torn Moscow, Kiev, Tbilisi, Batumi and the ruins of Stalingrad, with Steinbeck providing the text. President Dwight  D. Eisenhower awarded him the Congressional Medal of Freedom for his WWII and day images. Additionally, Hungary released a gold coin and a stamp of Capa in his honour. From 1948-1950, he photographed the turmoil following Israel’s declaration of independence.

Untimely End

In 1954 he went to Hanoi to photograph the French war in Indochina for LIFE. Sadly, Capa was killed shortly after his arrival.  While accompanying a french unit, he got out of the jeep to get better photographs and stepped on a landmine. One camera was flung away by the force of the blast. Mortally wounded, with the other camera still in his hand, he was declared dead at the hospital. He became the first American war correspondent killed in the Vietnam conflict. Capa was just 40 yrs old. He had photographed five wars and the official founding of Israel.

Robert Capa is considered the 20th-century’s best photojournalist/war photographer. The French army posthumously awarded him the Croix de Guerre with Palm.  In 1955 the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award was established to reward the “best published photographic reporting from abroad requiring exceptional courage and enterprise”.  The International Photography Hall of Fame and Museum inducted Capa in 1976.

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The building was listed on the Australian National Heritage List in 2014, recognising its place “as a significant part of Australia’s history associated with Australia’s wheat industry and the impact of World War Two on the home front”

Wikipedia

Wheat and Wartime

Wheat crop yields had improved over the years, and 1941 was a bumper season. With limited opportunity for several years to export during WW2, coupled with the ongoing scarcity of hessian bags and cornsacks, and with all other silos full, a new 3 million bushel storage solution was needed. The Wheat Board decided to build the shed to store wheat that could not be exported during WW2.

Construction of the Shed

The building commenced in September 1941 and was completed just four months later, in January 1942. Due to a steel shortage, it was built from unmilled timber trucked in from the Dandenong Ranges. Consisting of 560 upright poles (56 rows of 10), some as high as 80 feet tall, the shed is 265 metres (870 feet) long. It stands at 60 metres (198 feet) wide and just under 20 metres (63 feet) at the highest point. Furthermore, it has a capacity for 95,000 tonnes of wheat. The roof and walls are corrugated iron and painted ferric red.

The entire building was constructed with hand tools. Within six months of being finished, the shed was full, with all the wheat remaining untouched in storage until 1944. Often referred to as the Cathedral of the Wimmera, the interior is both dramatic and unique. Tall unmilled poles line a long central aisle, with light spilling in from the skylights reminiscent stained glass window.

The building closed in 1989 when it was deemed ‘uneconomic’, but the Heritage Building council issued an Interim Protection Order in December 1989 preventing its demolition. In 1990 it was added to the Victorian Heritage Register giving it permanent protection.

A second and much larger shed, with double the capacity was built in 1942/3 but was demolished in 1975

Location and Entry

• 1465 Wimmera Hwy, Murtoa.
• Open Monday to Saturday 10 am to 12.30 pm, and Sunday 10 am to 2 pm
• Entry is $10, concession $9. Children under 16 $5

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