Photography and the Moving Image in Battle
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PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE MOVING IMAGE IN BATTLE TAKE HOME STORIES floor list EXHIBITIONS ACROSS MAITLAND Maitland’s Own MAITLAND REGIONAL MUSEUM BROUGH HOUSE 29 September – 28 November 2017 Passchendaele: photography and the moving image in battle MAITLAND REGIONAL ART GALLERY 14 October 2017 – 28 January 2018 Walls that talk MAITLAND CITY LIBRARY 16 October – 13 November 2017 UNKNOWN AUSTRALIAN OFFICIAL It was designed for outdoor use and PHOTOGRAPHER was made from high quality wood Hubert Wilkins and William with brass fittings in order to make Joyce (left) standing with it robust. The camera could also be tripod and camera on a British folded and packed away into a carrying Mark V tank, 4 October 1918 case. However, it was still a very heavy digital reproduction, AWM E03915 and cumbersome piece of equipment to carry, especially when accompanied Wilkins used tanks to provide height by the wooden tripod, glass plates and and perspective for his photographs. First floor all the other accessories. It was even According to Bean, in September more challenging when used in the 1917, Wilkins was standing on a tank circumstances that photographers faced in order to photograph a shell bursting on the First World War battlefields. during the Battle of Polygon Wood. Wilkins was knocked off the tank when UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER a shell burst beneath it, losing ‘two fine Robert Wilson, 1916 [photographic glass] plates’. START HERE digital reproduction, AWM P01920.005 This photograph and the replica Robert Wilson (1884 – 1917) was born camera on display hint at the in Scotland. In 1916, he was working challenges facing the official war as a miner and living in Abermain photographers. Their equipment was when he enlisted. He was killed bulky and awkward. Being at the in action at Passchendaele on front was challenging, frightening and 13 October 1917. dangerous. Finding suitable sites from which to photograph – safely and not His portrait is from an honour so safely – required inventiveness. board with images of twenty-five servicemen from Abermain who lost Front of building A replica Thornton-Pickard their lives during the First World War. 1.2 plate camera and tripod Women of the Abermain Comforts Fund presented the honour board to on loan from the Australian War the Abermain RSL. Memorial, PROP03103.001 Camera, PROP03103.003 Tripod This is a replica of the type of camera and tripod used by the official Australian war photographers. GALLOWAY STUDIOS appear as cut-outs moving through GALLOWAY STUDIOS His correspondence home includes Percy Roland Mears, 1916 trees full of foliage. The pictorial Rupert Milton Cross, 1916 letters of sympathy to local families narrative veers away from the horrors whose men had ‘made the digital reproduction, AWM P04700.002 digital reproduction, AWM P04709.001 of war and the aesthetics of the supreme sacrifice’. A number of the young men and Rupert Cross (1898 – 1917) was one image take over. women from the extended Mears of nineteen recruits accepted into Brown was killed at Morlancourt, France family served on the Western Front. UNKNOWN AUSTRALIAN the Australian army at Maitland on on 8 May 1918. He has no known Among them were Percy Mears OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER 1 February 1916. He was an 18-year-old grave. He was 30 years of age. (1896 – 1917) and three of his Looking across flooded shell labourer from Sparkes Creek, CHARLESTON STUDIOS brothers, Edgar, Stanley and William. craters to Menin Road through via Scone. Clarence Smith Jeffries, 1916 Percy was a cleaner living at Branxton the desolated area beyond He died at Passchendaele on digital reproduction, AWM P09373.001 when he enlisted in July 1916. In April Ypres, 28 September 1917 12 October 1917. As with so many of 1917, he met up with Edgar at the front. digital reproduction, AWM E00844 the men killed at Passchendaele, there Clarence Jeffries (1894 – 1917) was Edgar wrote, ‘Percy knows what war is are different accounts of his death: an only child. He was educated in Horse and motor transport are taking like by now, but he looks well.’ ‘he was killed by a shell’, he ‘was shot Newcastle and was then apprenticed supplies to the fighting troops along through the eye’, ‘he was missing’. as a mining surveyor at the Abermain Percy died of wounds received at the Menin Road. Silhouettes, especially Collieries, where his father was the Passchendaele. He was 21 years of the naked and reflected trees, evoke The battle was such a mess that it general manager. age. Stanley was killed in 1918; Edgar the devastation of the Ypres landscape. was almost impossible to know or and William returned to Australia. The flooded shell craters in the see what was happening. In 1912, he joined the 14th (Hunter foreground capture the wet and mud River) Infantry Regiment, Citizens Further details about the Mears that marked these battlefields. CAMERON STUDIO Military Force. He joined the 34th family are at Brough House until Russell Stanley Brown, 1916 Battalion in July 1916. 28 November 2017. Hurley described scenes like this with their ‘incessant rains and wind, and digital reproduction, AWM P06497.001 Jeffries served at the Battle of UNKNOWN AUSTRALIAN the roadways quagmires with the Messines, and then at Passchendaele. OFFICIAL PHOTOGRAPHER Russell Brown (1888 – 1918) was grinding of the continuous procession He died on 12 October 1917. He was a shipping clerk at the Hunter Australian artillery limbers of transport lorries and troops.’ River Steamship Company wharf 23 years of age. For his actions at loaded with ammunition at Morpeth. He was also an active Passchendaele, Jeffries was awarded proceeding along Ypres Road, member of the Maitland Musical a posthumous Victoria Cross. 25 September 1917 Society and, after enlistment in March Jeffries is memorialised through digital reproduction, AWM E00829 1916 and while still in Maitland, sang at photographs, a park named in his Silhouettes are a signature feature entertainment evenings for the military. honour, the Abermain Roll of Honour, of a number of iconic photographs He served at Passchendaele and was a library, a memorial wall and of the battles in Flanders. In this subsequently promoted to Lieutenant. much more. example, the men and their horses UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER FRANK HURLEY In 1918 Wand’s sister, Mary, was sent Sawyer recovered sufficiently to his personal effects. They included: return to the trenches. He was Jack Bowden Pryor, 1916 Preparing a duckboard track recorded as missing in action on over the muddy waste near letters, silk lace handkerchief, digital reproduction, AWM P11384.001 7 May 1918 at Morlancourt in France. Zonnebeke, 5 October 1917 1 fountain pen, 1 hair brush, Jack Pryor (1890 – 1917), like all the men 1 prayer book, 1 German buckle, It was later confirmed that he digital reproduction, AWM E00837 and women who enlisted, left family, buttons, 2 pairs of gloves, 1 pencil had been killed in action. friends and a career. This studio Taken the day after the Australian case and pencils, 1 belt, 1 razor portrait of Pryor in civilian clothes is a attack on Broodseinde Ridge, the strop, 1 Sam Browne belt, 1 collar, UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER reminder of the lives left behind. image focuses on the muddy sludge 1 tie, 1 balaclava cap, 4 pairs of David Baker Cooper, 1916 and the need to create walkways Jack Pryor was newly married when socks, 2 towels, 1 singlet, 1 pair digital reproduction, AWM P11014.001 across the ground. The two horses he enlisted in September 1916. At the of underpants, 3 handkerchiefs, in the foreground anchor the David Cooper’s (1890 – 1917) time, he was working as a plasterer 2 shirts, 1 S.D. tunic. composition: they face towards the father and grandfather, both named with the family firm of Pryor and In late 1920, the Australian military men. The silhouettes of men Thomas Cooper, were building Pender in Maitland. He had trained sent Wand’s father photographs of his carrying the duckboards convey contractors in Maitland. David chose at Maitland Technical College. son’s grave in Belgium. an impression of movement and a different career. He was a shop He was also a staunch Methodist. assistant when he enlisted in constant toil. CAMERON STUDIO In one of his letters home, Jack Pryor January 1916. wrote, ‘I’m still looking to be back UNKNOWN PHOTOGRAPHER Thomas Ernest Sawyer, 1916 Cooper, like so many other Australian home again some day.’ digital reproduction, AWM P11631.001 William Wand, 1916 soldiers, went absent without leave Jack Pryor was killed at digital reproduction, AWM P10080.001 Thomas Sawyer (1892 – 1918) came for a short while. This happened Passchendaele. He was 27 years old. from Bishops Bridge near Maitland. when he was training in England. William Wand (1897 – 1917) enlisted His widow eventually remarried, to At the time of his enlistment in July On reaching the Western Front in at Maitland in March 1916. He was a another war veteran. 1916, he was working as a shop early 1917, his ‘excellent observation labourer from Singleton. Wand’s paternal assistant and was 24 years of age. work’ attracted praise from his Jack Pryor’s personal papers are grandfather had settled at Wallarobba in commanding officer. on display at Brough House until the mid-nineteenth century. He was wounded at Passchendaele, 28 November 2017. and spent the next six months Cooper was killed at Passchendaele During his military service Wand recovering in England. He returned to on 12 October 1917. He was rose through the ranks from private the front line in March 1918. Very soon 27 years old. His brother, Reginald, to second lieutenant. He was at afterwards, he was admitted to hospital was killed at Bullecourt, France, the Western Front from November with bronchitis.