Antarctic conservation blog archive

George, Thursday 22 July 2010

Temperature: -23.3°C
Wind speed: 10 knots
Temp with wind chill: approximately -33°C
Moonrise: none
Moonset: none

Herbert Ponting, the official photographer for Scott’s Terra Nova expedition, preferred working with glass plate negatives for their superior image quality – even though photographic film had been in popular use for at least 20 years. The glass plate negatives we are conserving from the darkroom are of different types, and from different companies around the world such as London, France, Sydney and Wellington. Nearly half are by the ‘Paget Prize Plate Company’ which was based in Watford, UK, and happens to be my home town! The company was only in existence for a short time so these packages are very rare indeed!

A selection of glass plate negatives by Paget Prize Plate Company © AHT / G Whiteley

The vast majority of Ponting’s surviving works are in black and white, but the collection shows that he clearly wanted to experiment with colour. There are over 30 packages of colour plates but it seems this process proved too technically challenging for the environment with only a few colour photos ever being published. The processed plates returned to England with Ponting, so the remaining packages and boxes in the hut are unopened – perhaps abandoned as the most unworkable.

3 packages of plates stuck together with mould, before treatment © AHT / G Whiteley

3 packages of plates after treatment © AHT / G Whiteley

Water damage over the years has left these plates in poor condition. Even for Ponting spoilage was a persistent problem. In his biography he describes how he had so many plates he had to store them outside in the snow and then carefully bring them into the hut when needed. This was done gradually as the change in humidity and temperature could damage the sensitive gelatine coating.

Herbert Ponting in the Dark Room, Cape Evans circa 1911 © Ponting / Alexander Turnbull Library

Ponting’s darkroom has been relatively untouched over the years and so provides an intriguing time capsule (or should that be snapshot!) into the working processes of this early Antarctic ‘camera artist’.

Posted in Antarctica

One Response to “Ponting’s plates”

1. July 22nd, 2010 at 3:08 pm
   Jason Thompson says:
   

   What wonderful and important work you’re doing. The before and after photos are very interesting. The work looks difficult and challenging, and the results are fantastic. I was fortunate to see Ponting’s color photographs at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. Keep posting photographs of your work in progress, it’s really interesting to see as well as images of your work space too. Jason Thompson