Adlib Internet Server 5

Select

411964

Title
British Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plates by Frank Hurley
Creator
Frank Hurley, 1885-1962
Call number
ON 26
Level of description
fonds
Date

1914-1917
Type of material
Graphic Materials, Photographs
Reference code
411964
Physical Description
32 photographs (2 boxes) - colour glass phototransparencies (Paget plates) - 12.0 x 16.3 cm
Scope and Content
ITEM 1:

Hurley with cinematograph. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 2:

Hurley photographing under the bows of the 'Endurance'. Shackleton Expedition, 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 3:

The pack ice breaking up. Sir Ernest Shackleton watching a lead forming, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 4:

Cheetam, 3rd officer of the 'Endurance', signalling. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 5:

The bo's'un [boatswain] of the 'Endurance', Vincent A.B. [John Vincent] mending a net. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 6:

The pink glow of the rising sun shining on a pressure ridge. Weddell Sea. Winter, 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 7:

The rigging of the 'Endurance' encrusted with rime crystals. Weddell Sea, 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 8:

Looking across a 'lead' newly formed onto a pressure ridge. Weddell Sea. Shackleton Expedition, January 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 9:

A midwinter glow. Weddell Sea. Shackleton [Expedition], 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 10:

Noon. Mid-winters day, Weddell Sea. Shackleton Expedition, 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 11:

The 'Endurance' under full sail, held up in the Weddell Sea, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 12:

Mid-summer. A lead recently formed and just freezing over. The foreground is covered with small carnation shaped crystals, called ice flowers. Shackleton expedition, January 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 13:

A midsummer sunset with close up view of 'Endurance' frozen in, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 14:

The 'Endurance' frozen in 76/35 South, 1 January 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 15:

The 'Endurance' frozen in mid-winter. Shackleton Expedition, 1915 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 16:

The deck of the 'Endurance'. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 17:

Glimpse of the ship through hummocks. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 18:

A typical sub-Antarctic sunrise. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 19:

Glacier. New Fortuna Bay, South Georgia. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 20:

New Fortuna Glacier. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 21:

Scene. West fjord, South Georgia. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 22:

Face of the Neumayer Glacier, South Georgia. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 23:

King penguin rookery. South Georgia. Bay of Isles, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 24:

Scene in the Bay of Isles. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 25:

Headland covered with dying tussock grass. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 26:

Scene. Moraine Fjord. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 27:

The 'Bulldog' peak, head of Moraine Fjord. South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 28:

Summer vegetation. Leith Harbour, South Georgia, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 29:

Glacier face. South Georgia. Shackleton Expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 30:

The impenetrable icefield we encountered in lat [latitude] 76.30S which prevented us from reaching the land, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 31:

The chick of the Wanderer Albatross, South Georgia. Shackleton Expedition, February 1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley

ITEM 32:

Dog teams scouting a way to the land across the rough sea ice. Shackleton expedition, 1914-1917 / Paget plate by Frank Hurley
Access Conditions

Access via appointment
Copying Conditions
Out of copyright: Created before 1955
Please acknowledge:: Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales
General note

The Paget Colour Plate system used by Hurley was not like today's colour film. It used a ruled set of colour lines, called a screen, sandwiched with a standard black and white glass half plate negative. The subject was exposed through the colour screen, which acted like a series of colour filters, onto the black and white negative. The negative was reverse processed into a positive transparency and placed back in contact with the screen, giving the effect of a colour photograph.

NOTE: With time, many of the screens have shrunk at a different rate to the black and white positive, so that the image now has a strange magenta/green colour shift that does not resemble the original colours. On the other hand, some of Hurley's Paget plates seem to have the correct rendering.

TECHNICAL DETAILS OF PAGET COLOUR PLATES: Early colour processes were based on introducing minute colour filters into a black and white emulsion. For instance the Autochrome system used minute potato starch grains, one third dyed red-orange, green and violet on a glass plate. Red light would pass through a red starch grain and give a black dot on the negative. Reverse processing would then produce a clear spot. When the glass plate was held up to the light, a red spot would be seen, corresponding to the original light.
Several colour screen processes, using machine ruled lines on the emulsion, were introduced before WWI.

Geoffrey Whitfield of London devised a system in which the screen was produced on a plate first dyed red. The surface was covered with parallel lines printed in a water resistant material and the plate bleached. The clear spaces between were dyed green and a second pattern of cross resist lnes was printed, followed by a second bleach. The clear spaces remaining were dyed blue, giving a pattern of two blue squares to each red and green square. The elements were about 1/300 inch in size..They were marketed as Paget Colour Plates in April 1913. Exposures were about 1/25th second at f4. It was possible to buy separate screens, which were sandwiched with the black and white plate before exposure and realigned after processing.

Colour screen processes fell out of favour in the 1920s, when the price of screens became prohibitive. Naturally, enlargement of any colour screen process soon reveals the pattern of lines or, in the case of an Autochrome, the potato starch grains.

-- Curator of Photographs, Mitchell Library, 2001
5 x 4 positive film colour transparencies (reproductions) separately located at the Colour Transparencies films copy sequence at ON 26.
Digital order no:Album ID : 823227
Signatures / Inscriptions

Identifications typed on original envelopes in boxes. Envelope number 6 was not assigned.
Name
Endurance (ship)
Hurley, Frank, 1885-1962
Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917)
Subject
Antarctica--Discovery and exploration--British.
Place
Antarctica.
Exhibited in

Eye 4 photography - State Library of New South Wales (8 January - 29 May, 2005). Applies to: no.7
ONE hundred : celebrating the Mitchell Library centenary - State Library of New South Wales (March 2010 - June 2010). Applies to: nos. 4, 18