It was a brutal baptism. With temperatures falling below minus 30 degrees Celsius, equipment froze solid. Changing photographic plates became an exercise in pain management.
The Breezer - A weekly newsletter from Steve Winduss at the Batting the Breeze podcast. Spend a few minutes with me exploring historical snippets and fascinating facts related to the forthcoming week.16th November 2025.
Happy Sunday Reader! If you take a trip to the National Portrait Gallery in London, you’ll find 'Room 30: Contemporary Conversations', where paintings and early photographs hang side by side, engaged in what amounts to a polite but determined turf war.
You can see artists of the era, freed from the tyranny of having to paint subjects exactly as they look, begin experimenting with impressionism, abstraction and wild colour. By contrast, the early photos look very staged and formulaic.
However, by the 1850s, photographers were experimenting too—adding drama and atmosphere to their images that the camera alone couldn’t capture.
Out of Curiosity
Joseph Niécphore Niépce created the earliest surviving photograph of a real-world scene in 1826-27. However, the first commercially viable photographic process was the daguerrotype, a process invented by Louis Daguerre.
His first ever photograph is thought to have been taken in 1837, although he created his earliest surviving daguerrotype, ‘Boulevard du Temple’, in 1838—publicly announced the following year.
This is Louis Daguerre’s Boulevard du Temple, 1838. Can you see a man having his shoes shined in the photo? The image is widely accepted as the earliest photograph to show a human figure clearly.
Which brings us, somewhat improbably, to a man standing on Antarctic ice in 1915, hauling glass plate negatives across frozen seas, determined to turn a disaster into something beautiful.
Frank Hurley was born in Sydney, Australia, on 15 October 1885. Australia was still a collection of separate colonies—federation was fifteen years away.
By eighteen, Frank had taught himself the basics of photography, which was still transitioning into something more artful than simply recording what the eye could see. By 1905, he was a partner in a postcard business in central Sydney.
This was the golden age of postcards, before the telephone took over as the primary form of communication. Frank photographed Sydney and the surrounding areas, converting his images into postcards.
However, he started to embrace the ‘Pictorialist’ philosophy of photography that had been evolving since around 1890. This focus helped him to develop a signature style that provided the basis of his photography for the next 50 years.
Out of Curiosity
For centuries, artists had perfected the art of painting what they could see. Take a look at Thomas Gainsborough’s ‘The Blue Boy’ or John Constable’s The Hay Wain. Life represented in oil or watercolour.
Then, after centuries of perfecting this skill, photography emerged.
What was the point of painting what you could see when photographs could do it faster and cheaper? The Impressionists and Post-Impressionists had an answer: Monet, Renoir, Cézanne, Van Gogh and their contemporaries stopped trying.
These artists decided to paint impression over precision, atmosphere over accuracy.
Constable’s clouds gave way to Van Gogh’s swirling skies while Gainsborough’s silken portraits evolved into Picasso’s angular, cubist faces.
This image shows two photos painted by Claude Monet of his wife, Camille. On the left, Camille au petit chien (1866) shows Monet’s wife in a formal pose, dark background, carefully modelled features and plenty of realistic detail. On the right, Woman with a Parasol – Madame Monet and Her Son (1875), shows Monet’s progression into Impressionism. Here, Camille is shown with a sunlit background, light colours, blurred lines and sweeping brushstrokes.
Here’s the problem. Photographers such as Hurley were finding photography too mechanical. Point and click. A monkey could do that—but where was the artistry?
The Pictorialists had their own Impressionist awakening. They considered creating art rather than precise images by introducing soft focus, imaginative compositions and manipulation in the darkroom.
Like the Impressionists, these photographic artists sought mood and atmosphere, rather than documentary precision. They had discovered that blurring reality could somehow make it more truthful.
Frank wanted the drama and artistic control of Pictorialism, but without the soft-focus romance. He wanted sharp edges, epic scale, dramatic skies—the kind of subjects Sydney Harbour couldn’t provide
Hurley needed something more extreme. He found it when he joined Douglas Mawson’s 1911 Australasian Antarctic Expedition.
It was a brutal baptism. With temperatures falling below minus 30 degrees Celsius, equipment froze solid. Changing photographic plates became an exercise in pain management.
Nonetheless, Hurley’s photos from that expedition have become iconic images of Antarctic exploration.
But the career-defining moment came in 1914, when Hurley joined Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition. Shackleton’s challenge was to attempt the first land crossing of Antarctica.
The expedition set sail in August 1914. Their ship—the Endurance—spent six weeks pushing through pack ice, crossing the Antarctic Circle to within a day’s reach of their destination, Vahsel Bay.
But the ice had different ideas. The northerly gales pushed ice floes hard against each other. The Endurance came to a standstill and would remain locked in the Weddell Sea for the next ten months.
Frank Hurley (taken on board Endurance) 1914.
By late October, Shackleton and his men had left the precarious ship and set up what they colourfully referred to as ‘Ocean Camp’—shabby tents perched on a migrating ice floe with only penguins and elephant seals for company.
Hurley made repeated trips back to the stricken ship, rescuing 120 photographic plates from a collection of over 500. Agonisingly, he smashed the remaining negatives—the only way to guarantee not risking his life trying to retrieve them later.
For the following month, the stranded crew of the Endurance watched helplessly as the vast, grinding walls of ice closed in on the trapped vessel. She groaned and twisted.
One hundred and ten years ago this Saturday, 21 November 1915, the Endurance unleashed a resounding cry as her back broke. She had finally given way to the merciless ice floes. With the grace of a prima ballerina, the three-masted barquentine pointed her nose down and slipped gradually beneath the waves.
In fact, the Endurance came to a stop with her stern sitting proud of the water. She held that pose for a week, as if waiting for a final curtain call. Then, quietly, she surrendered to the Weddell Sea.
Those images rescued by Hurley document one of history’s greatest survival stories. Shackleton’s entire crew would survive 22 months stranded on the ice. Hurley’s photographs gave the world a front-row seat to their ordeal.
These photographs were stunning, if not somewhat controversial. Hurley created composites, combining multiple negatives into single dramatic images—turning documentary into romantic elegy.
Purists were horrified, but Hurley was unapologetic. He was an artist. He wasn’t just there to record facts.
Frank Hurley captures a group of dogs watching the Endurance shortly before she sinks to the bottom of the Weddell Sea, November 1915.
In a previous Breezer, I have mentioned my favourite painting, J.M.W. Turner’s The Fighting Temeraire (OK, more than once!). Art historians still debate whether Turner’s masterpiece is an actual depiction of what he saw when the HMS Temeraire was hauled up the River Thames by a steam-driven tug boat in 1838, on its way to being scrapped.
Was it actually a composite of images and ideas? The Temeraire had made that final journey, steam tugs had towed sailing ships to their end, the sun had set on countless evenings.
All the elements had existed at some time, but Turner arranged them to deliver an experience that was so much more than a literal snapshot in time.
Similarly, curators still debate which of Frank Hurley’s images are ‘real’ and which are composites; which are true representations of a moment and which tell us what the experience of a moment was like. Just like Turner.
Frank Hurley would have been delighted.
Dates with History
Thursday…
The military men sat silently in their uniforms. Tell-tale patches of unfaded fabric betrayed where swastikas and Iron Crosses had been hastily unstitched. The remainder of the accused slouched in drab suits.
Eighty years ago this Thursday, 20 November 1945, marked the beginning of the Nuremberg Trials, more formally known as the International Military Tribunal (IMT).
The men who sat in the dock at the Nuremberg Palace of Justice were the 21 Nazi leaders who had wrought the most grotesque atrocities on mankind during World War II: six million Jews systematically murdered; countless civilians slaughtered; towns and cities almost erased from the map.
The court decided that Hermann Göring’s plea of ‘just following orders’ was no defence for these moral outrages. National sovereignty would no longer shield individuals from justice.
The trials lasted ten months. Twelve defendants received death sentences, seven were handed prison terms and three were acquitted.
Göring side-stepped his own hanging by taking a cyanide pill the night before his execution.
Twenty-one Nazi leaders at the 1945-46 Nuremberg Trials. Hermann Göring is sitting bottom left next to Rudolf Hess.
Also Thursday...
One hundred and thirty years to the day before the Nuremberg Trials, 20 November 1815, Europe was tidying up the paperwork from another war.
France had signed the Second Treaty of Paris. The Napoleonic party was officially over—for good this time. Actually, there were four Second Treaties of Paris—France signed four identical treaties with Great Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia.
The First Treaty of Paris—signed the year before—had been rather generous to the French. They kept their pre-Napoleonic borders, most of their overseas territories and were excused from any significant penalties for the minor inconvenience of conquering most of Europe. No hard feelings apparently.
However, Napoleon had escaped from the island of Elba in February, waltzed back into Paris in March and embarked on a hundred-day farewell tour before meeting his Waterloo in June.
The Battle of Waterloo (1815), painted by William Sadler in 1815.
This time, the Allies were less generous. The Second Treaty of Paris declared that France would cede territory won post-1790, pay 700 million francs in indemnities and suffer 150,000 Allied troops occupying its border territories until the tab was settled.
As for Napoleon Bonaparte; he was dispatched to the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,200 miles from the nearest land mass, Angola.
The Napoleonic Wars were finally over. Europe could breathe again.
By the Way
One of the most memorable days in British politics occurred 35 years ago this Thursday, 20 November 1990. Margaret Thatcher resigned from 10 Downing Street after 11 years in power, the longest-serving British Prime Minister of the 20th century.
As the dust settled on Thatcher’s political career, the historians were hard at work. They pored over diaries, cabinet papers and memoirs to fill in any historical gaps while forming a balanced view of her legacy.
One fact they couldn’t agree on was whether Mrs Thatcher had ever met another British Prime Ministerial titan, Sir Winston Churchill. Most historians shrugged their shoulders and decided that she hadn’t. Some quoted a 1950 encounter at a Conservative rally, but it wasn’t clear if they had actually spoken or not.
However, two years ago, I was in a privileged position to uncover that Mrs Thatcher had indeed met Winston Churchill. I shared my discovery with respected historian Richard Langworth, Senior Fellow for Hillsdale College’s Churchill Project, based in Michigan.
Edmund Murray (right), always at Sir Winston’s side—by kind permission of Bill Murray.
As Bill recollected, in 1964 his sister was the victim of a stalking incident in a poorly-fenced wood near their home in Finchley. An enthusiastic and budding Margaret Thatcher happened to be Edmund Murray’s local Member of Parliament, and arranged for robust fencing to appear within weeks, earning Edmund's lasting gratitude.
Thereafter, while Churchill—long-since retired—visited old friends in the House of Commons Smoking Room, Edmund would occasionally bump into Mrs Thatcher in the adjacent area and exchange brief courtesies.
Edmund noticed that Mrs Thatcher had—on more than one occasion—peeked into the smoking room and across at Mr Churchill. He encouraged her to go in, but she was reticent.
Then came the moment.
One day, as Edmund and Churchill were leaving for the car, Mrs Thatcher appeared in the corridor. With great pleasure, Edmund introduced Mr Churchill to the lady who would one day fill his seat as Prime Minister. They shook hands. Sir Winston beamed at her as Edmund explained how helpful she’d been to his family.
Then they moved on.
The encounter lasted minutes. Edmund had been the only person to witness this delightful and historical moment.
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Question of the Week
She was born in August 1893 in Brooklyn, New York City.
She made her first film at the age of 38, but became one of Hollywood’s highest-paid stars overnight.
She is reported to have discovered Cary Grant, insisting that he play opposite her in ‘She Done Him Wrong’ (1933).
Her stage character, Diamond Lil, was so iconic that people assumed it was her real persona.
During World War II, RAF pilots nicknamed their life jackets after her, owing to a resemblance to her famous curves.
Who was she?
And Finally…
The Essex was a whaling ship out of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Although Nantucket is a small island, by the early 19th century it had become the whaling capital of the world.
In August 1819, the Essex had departed Nantucket, heading for the Pacific Ocean’s rich whaling grounds off the coast of Chile and Peru. The 238-ton vessel was commanded by Captain George Pollard Jr.
A year later, hunting sperm whales had yielded over 450 barrels of whale oil—a decent return, despite some lean months.
The method for catching a whale was precarious, to say the least. Small boats would launch from the Essex, row alongside the unsuspecting mammal and then—from point-blank range—thrust a harpoon into several tons of very surprised whale.
Then came what the whalers cheerfully nicknamed the Nantucket Sleigh Ride—a term that rather downplayed the ‘furious whale trying to kill you’ aspect.
The wounded whale would dive. The harpoon line then unfurled at a dizzying speed that could remove fingers, hands or entire crew members if they didn’t stay alert.
Then the six-man crew—presumably regretting their career choices at this point—would be dragged along at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour by an extremely angry whale.
If the boat hadn’t capsized or been smashed to pieces, the exhausted whale would then float to the surface to await the final death blow.
It was brutal and dangerous work.
Killing a Sperm Whale with the Lance, illustrated by Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, 1916.
Two hundred and five years ago this Thursday, 20 November 1820, the crew had spotted a pod of whales and—like any other day—launched their boats.
Owen Chase, the first officer, remained near the Essex. He noticed an 85-foot-long, 80-ton bull sperm whale on the surface only 25 yards from the ship. Chase observed that he was ‘acting strangely’, though I am not clear how an 85-ton bull sperm whale is supposed to act.
Without warning, the whale charged directly at the Essex, shattering her bow timbers. The ship shuddered violently. But rather than turn and leave, the whale repositioned himself off the bow and charged again.
This time, his head smashed through the waterline. The ocean poured in. Within moments, the Essex leaned over to her side and disappeared below the waves. Twenty men were now adrift in three small boats thousands of miles from land.
The ordeal that followed made the original attack seem like a minor inconvenience. Eight of the original twenty men survived the 95-day ordeal at sea by cannibalising their mates who had perished from starvation. When that food source ran out, they drew lots to determine who would be sacrificed next.
The last of the eight were rescued in April 1821.
Later in 1821, First Officer Owen Chase published 'Narrative of the Most Extraordinary and Distressing Shipwreck of the Whale-Ship Essex'. Twenty years later again, Owen’s son William encountered a fellow whaler, Herman Melville, during a trip not far from the original spot where the monster sperm whale originally struck.
During their conversation, William handed over a copy of his father’s memoirs. The book had a profound effect on Melville.
However, it wasn’t until 1851, having retired from whaling and other oceanic pursuits, that Herman Melville sat down to write what would become one of the greatest American adventure novels of all time.
Moby Dick.
Thank you for joining me. Have a great week!
Steve
HOST & CHIEF STORY HUNTER
P:S: Incidentally, I am always keen to receive your feedback to help me continuously improve this newsletter and the podcast. Just hit reply to this email and...... let it rip! I respond to every email that I receive.
The Brooklyn girl-turned-Hollywood superstar was Mae West.
Although Mae’s Hollywood career didn’t start until she was 38 years old, she had been performing in vaudeville shows from the age of seven.
Mae West and Cary Grant in the 1933 film, I’m No Angel.
In an era of strict moral codes, Mae West exuded a burlesque sexuality, which often landed her in trouble. During the 1920s, she had written and performed in Broadway plays, eventually landing her in jail for ‘corrupting the morals of youth’.
In her first film, ‘Night After Night’ (1932), a cloakroom attendant sees Mae and comments, “Goodness, what beautiful diamonds!”. In response, West delivers the immortal line…
Goodness had nothing to do with it.
Mae West died 45 years ago this Saturday, 22 November 1980, at the age of 87. As she once famously stated….
You only live once, but if you do it right, once is enough.
ATTRIBUTIONS
Boulevard du Temple: Louis Daguerre, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Monet’s wife - Camille : (left) Claude Monet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons; (right) Claude Monet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Frank Hurley, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Endurance final sinking: See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia. 21 Nazi leaders: Ray D'Addario, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Battle of Waterloo: William Sadler, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Killing a sperm whale: Alpheus Hyatt Verrill, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Mae West and Cary Grant: Paramount Pictures, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
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