Cover not available

In:Progress in Colour Studies: Cognition, language and beyond
Edited by Lindsay W. MacDonald, Carole P. Biggam and Galina V. Paramei
[Not in series 217] 2018
► pp. 730–750

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 24
Mapping the Antarctic

Photography, colour and the scientific expedition in public exhibition

 | University of Leeds, UK
Published online: 26 November 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/z.217.24wat
Abstract
Early 1900s Polar expeditions experimented with photography to supplement established modes of documentation, from the work of exploration to scientific study (zoology, geography, meteorology). In recognition of the economic and educational potential of visual records, R.F. Scott employed ‘camera artist’ Herbert G. Ponting for his 1910–13 South Pole expedition: the photographs, lantern slide lectures, film and watercolours were linked to science and formed the basis of public exhibitions. Ponting’s work predominantly consisted of black-and-white images from experiments with telephoto lenses, flashlight photography and cinematography, however, studies of colour exist. Autochromes, dyes and notes on the hues of refracted sunlight and artificial light link photography and colour to the temporality of the Antarctic and the vulnerability of perception.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Polar expedition photography
  • 3.Colour and expedition photography
  • 4.Wilson’s notes on colour
  • 5.Expedition photography in public exhibition
  • 6.Cinema lectures: Still and moving images
  • Acknowledgements
  • References
References (43)
References
The Times, Saturday, 28th May 1910.
“Captain Scott’s Men. Science with the Camera. Terra Nova’s Start Tomorrow”, Daily Mail, 31 May 1910.
“The Photographic Equipment of the British Antarctic Expedition”. British Journal of Photography [BJP], 3 June 1910, 417–418.
“To the South Pole on the Cinematograph”. British Journal of Photography [BJP] no.2729 vol. LIX, 23 August 1912, 645–646.
Captain Scott’s British South Pole Expedition 1910–13, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Antarctic Sketches & Water Colours, Drawings of Norwegian and Swiss Scenery etc., City of Hull Municipal Art Gallery, April 1914.
Amundsen, Roald. 2001. The South Pole: An Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the Fram 1910–12 New York: Cooper Square Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bazin, André. 1967. “The Ontology of the Photographic Image”. in What is Cinema? Volume 1, trans. Hugh Gray. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 9–18.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cherchi Usai, Paolo. 1991. “The Color of Nitrate – Some Factual Observations on Tinting and Toning Manuals for Silent-Films.” Image 34(1–2): 29–38.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dixon, Robert. 2007. “What was Travel Writing? Frank Hurley and the Media Contexts of Early Twentieth-Century Australian Travel Writing”. Studies in Travel Writing, 11(1): 59–60.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “Pictures at an Exhibition: Frank Hurley’s in the Grip of the Polar Pack Ice (1919)”. Journal of Australian Studies 27: 123–137.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2013. Photography, Early Cinema and Colonial Modernity, Frank Hurley’s Synchronized Lecture Entertainments. London: Anthem Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Doane, Mary Ann. 2002. The Emergence of Cinematic Time: Emergency, Contingency, Archive. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gunning, Tom. 1986. “The Cinema of Attraction: Early Film, Its Spectator and the Avant Garde”. Wide Angle, 8(3/4): 63–70.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gunning, Tom, and Eric De Kuyper. 1996. “A Slippery Topic: Colour as Metaphor, Intention or Attraction?” In Disorderly Order: Colours in Silent Film. Amsterdam Workshop 1995. ed. Daan Hertogs and Nico de Klerk. Amsterdam: Stichting Nederlands Filmmuseum, 37–50.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hurley, Frank. 2011. The Diaries of Frank Hurley 1912–1941. ed. Robert Dixon and Christopher Lee. London: Anthem Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, Aubrey. 2011. Scott’s Forgotten Surgeon: Dr Reginald Koettlitz, Polar Explorer. Dunbeath, Caithness: Whittles Publishing.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kløver, Geir. 2010. “Introduction.” In Cold Recall – Reflections of a Polar Explorer. A Fram Museum Exhibition. ed. Geir O. Kløver. Oslo: The Fram Museum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
J.O. 1913. “The Scott Expedition in Photography.” Manchester Courier and Lancashire General Advertiser. Manchester, England. Issue 17815. Wednesday, 10 December: p.6.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mawson, Douglas. 1915. New York Lecture Script. Douglas Mawson Centre, Australian Polar Collection, South Australian Museum, Mawson Papers 169AAE. Holothurian Catch, IMGP0169.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peterson, Jennifer. 2014. “Lyrical Education: Music and Colour in Early Non-fiction Film.” In Performing New Media 1890–1915, ed. Kaveh Askari, et al. London: John Libbey Publishing. 186–192.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ponting, Herbert George. Correspondence with Macmillan and Co. Add Ms. 55221, British Library.
. Macmillan Archive vol. CDXXVI Correspondence with Herbert G. Ponting 1909–1924.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. Lantern Slide Collection, RGS-IBG, LS/834. Royal Geographical Society, London.
. British Antarctic Expedition 1910–13. Volume 7, MS280/28/7. Thomas H. Manning Polar Archive, University of Cambridge.
. 1910. In Lotus-Land Japan. London: MacMillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1914. With Captain Scott in the Antarctic, Animal and Bird Life in the South Polar Regions. Cinema programme. Eph-B-Antarctica. PR-08-0409, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1917. Mr Herbert G. Ponting’s Cinema Lecture ‘With Captain Scott in the Antarctic’. MS-papers-1225, Alexander Turnbull Library, National Library of New Zealand.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1921. The Great White South. London: Duckworth. New edition 2001 with introduction by Roland Huntford. New York: Cooper Square Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1922. “Gathering It In: The Camera in the Far South.” Illustrated London News, Issue 4349, Saturday 26 August, p. 318.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1924. The Great White Silence. Cinema theatre programme, The Bournemouth Electric. 11 August.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rosen, Philip. 2001. Change Mummified: Cinema, Historicity, Theory. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ruskin, John. 1857. The Elements of Drawing, in three Letters to Beginners. London: Smith, Elder.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Robert Falcon. 1913. Scott’s Last Expedition. Volume 1. London: Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. Journals, Captain Scott’s Last Expedition 1910–1913. ed. Max Jones. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ryan, James. 1997. Picturing Empire: Photography and the Visualization of the British Empire. London: Reaktion Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watkins, Liz. 2013. “Herbert G. Ponting’s Materials and Texts”. In Color and the Moving Image: History, Theory, Aesthetics, Archive. ed. Simon Brown et al. London: Routledge. 230–242.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. “Liminal Perceptions: Intermediality and the Exhibition of Non-fiction Film.” In The Colour Fantastic. ed. Victoria Jackson et al. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. pp. 51–73.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wilson, Edward. 1910–11. Lecture Notes. MS1225/3, Thomas H Manning Polar Archive, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1911. MS.234/3 Journal: 24 Jan – 31 Oct. Scott Polar Research Institute, Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1911. Letter to Mr and Mrs R J Smith 19 October 1911, MS.559/142/9. Thomas H Manning Polar Archive, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1911–12. Southern Sledge Journey – sketchbooks. MS797/1–2; BJ. Thomas H. Manning Polar Archive, University of Cambridge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yumibe, Joshua. 2012. Moving Color, Mass Culture, Modernism. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Yusoff, Kathryn. 2010. “Configuring the Field: Photography in Early Twentieth-Century Antarctic Exploration”. In New Spaces of Exploration: Geographies of Discovery in the Twentieth Century. eds. Simon Naylor and James Ryan. London: I B Tauris. 52–77.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue