If you only look at one set of images from Shackletons Antarctic expedition…

The detail in these images, the story behind them and the efforts the photographer went to taking and saving them (he threw food overboard at one point to save weight rather than the glass plate negatives). Have a read and a look, anyway.

https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2015/12/newly-restored-endurance-photos/

There were some staunch men on that expedition.

The one I think stands out was the carpenter who sounds like a stubborn and opinionated character, but without whom they would not have been able to save so much out of the ship, and without whom the boats would not have been safe to sail to S. Georgia.

I have this one on my wall:

The various books on the expedition are well worth a read. One of the most inspiring stories about a ‘failure’ ever!

Can you see the 6th man in your version? I’m interested in how much detail the digitising has brought out.

The one I think stands out was the carpenter

Theres a nice book called ‘Mrs Chippy’s Last Expedition’. The carpenter was obviously ‘Chippy’ – his cat was known on board as ‘Mrs Chippy’ (despite being male)

The book is the diary the cat kept of the expedition – which is quite amusing because his expedition notes largely consist of being on watch anywhere that happens to be warm or having his sleep disturbed – all the momentous events are happening elsewhere and he only notes that the fuss keeps waking him up – but really its about shifting focus from the senior members of the crew to people like McNish and Blackbarrow.

Can you see the 6th man in your version?

I can’t see him in this one!

🙂

He’s a bit ghostly!

The various books on the expedition are well worth a read.

I was given An Unsung Hero about Tom Crean for Christmas last year, who’s the fella with the pipe in the photo, he joined several expedition, Scott’s and Shackleton’s, earning a reputation as someone who was strong, solid and utterly dependable, and so was with Shackleton until the end, all the way to the whaling station on South Georgia; the two of them and Frank Worsely.  A bit slow to start with with, but a great read if you love this stuff, and still pretty good if you’ve only got a passing interest.

He’s a bit ghostly!

🙂

No, not in my version.

I’ve got a book of the Frank Hurley photographs, printed from the original glass plates and negatives. It includes the colour ones he took as well.

The level of detail in them is amazing as you are basically printing from a really large negative.

My cycling club has glass plates of  a cycle tour in the alps, taken before WW1 (so about the same era the Hurley photographs) and UK time trials taken in the 1920s.  Put them in a projector and look at them at 6 foot x 4 foot and you realise that image quality (apart from colour obs.) hasn’t really moved on much in 100 years.

On a sort of related note – the Great White Silence is a good watch. It was filmed on Scott’s antarctic expedition but wasn’t released until years later as, at the onset of WW1 there wasn’t really an appetite for a story about failure.

The BFI recently restored the print and released it as a blu-ray/DVD

Marvellous stuff.

That pic of the fella with the skis… All the frozen rigging and masts… soooo cold!