Exhibition Review

     The Heart of the Great Alone - Queen's Gallery,  Buckingham Palace 21 Oct 2011-15 April 2012

There are two reasons to visit the above photographic exhibition on Scott and Shackleton's Antartic journeys, firstly the quality of the photography itself and secondly to appreciate the incredible story the images tell. There are two interlinked main rooms allocated to the two main photographers whose work is on display. Initial entry is via the "Green Room" devoted to Herbert Ponting's (1870-1935) portrayal of Scott's quest to be the first to the South Pole, up to and including his fatal last journey in 1912. Ponting was a professional photographer and both he and Scott fully appreciated the financial and historical value of visually documenting their Antartic experiences. What we have here is a masterclass in what photo journalism is all about, from a time when the equipment was massively ill-suited to the rigours and hardship of life at the bottom of the world. How Ponting managed to capture such magnificent portraits and evocative landscape scenes while working in freezing conditions is a wonder in itself but the near miracle doesn't end there. There were four other men who accompanied Scott on his final dash to the Pole in 1912 and one of them, Bowers, in Ponting's absence was trained to operate a camera to record what happened. His photograph of the five of them, taken as they had just arrived totally exhausted at their destination, only to find they had been beaten by just a few weeks by the Norwegian, Amundsen, is as evocative and poignant a picture you will ever see. Physically shattered and at the end of their tether, knowing that in just a few short weeks there was every chance they would  all be dead, knowing the incredible hardship still to come, knowing how incredibly disappointed they were, they still insisted on documenting the moment and in the picture you can just make out the cable release in Bowers's hand (standing left) which enabled them all to be in the frame (see below). Such devotion to picture taking means 100 years on we can still place ourselves at the Pole with these brave men. Bowers's negatives were found on his dead body in the tent where the explorers finally perished just 12 miles from safety on the homeward journey. They suitably illustrate a story that is forever in a nation's psyche.

There is a small side room dedicated to these five men and Ponting's five beautifully crafted and composed  silver bromide toned portraits are worth a visit to this exhibition by themselves.

Moving into the Blue Room, we discover a photographic tale of even greater fortitude and drama with Frank Hurley's (1885-1962) record of Shackleton's expedition of 1914-17. What happened to Shackleton and his men is scarcely believable as they lost their ship, The Endurance, crushed by ice to leave them all stranded on an drifting ice floe, before setting sail for Elephant Island in small boats. Shackleton then proceeded with a few men on one boat to South Georgia, a journey of 800 miles, where after walking the breadth of the island he was finally able to alert civilisation to his men's desperate plight and mount a successful rescue operation. Incredibly everyone survived - a testament to Shackleton's leadership and stamina. However from a photographic aspect it is a miracle that Hurley, throughout such deprivation, not only managed to take carefully constructed photographs at all, but also managed to then preserve a large number of bulky glass negatives at a time when basic survival must have been the predominant instinct. He was forced to smash 400 glass plates when Endurance started to sink and there must have been times when lugging the rest seemed foolhardy, as even precious food supplies had to be jettisoned on the boat trip because the vessels were too low in the water. Hurley was a consummate professional photographer who often risked his life to get the image which tells a story that otherwise would be virtually unimaginable. If you relish "Boys Own" type adventure stories and you want to be visually transported back into an age when men took huge risks in the name of exploration, this photographic exhibition is an absolute must.