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Photograph album of battlefield scenes of the Passchendaele campaign, in and around Ypres, Belgium during World War I, 1917-1918
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Description
Album of photographs, many by Australian official photographer Frank Hurley, documenting one of the major battles of World War I, the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, between July and November 1917.
Background
Frontline photographer during World War I and Arctic adventurer. James Francis "Frank" Hurley was born in Sydney in 1885. As a young man, he taught himself photography, using a Kodak Box Brownie camera which he had bought on installments for 15 shillings. He spent three years as photographer for Douglas Mawson's Australasian Antarctic expedition (1911-1914), and in 1914, joined the Ernest Shackleton trans-Arctic expedition, where he earned a reputation as a photographer who would do anything for a picture. In 1917, Hurley was sent to the Western Front as an honorary caption in the Australian Imperial Force, and as an official photographer, documented the Passchendaele campaign with some of his most famous images, recorded under such risky and dangerous conditions that he was nicknamed "the mad photographer." Hurley believed that photographs could be manipulated to achieve dramatic and emotional effects, and often clashed with battlefield historians who regarded as "fake" the composite war images he created by combining two or more negatives.
Extent
1 album (65 photographic prints) : b&w, 23 x 28 cm (album)

Photographs (approx. 17 x 22 cm.) are mounted on rectos and versos of heavy white paper; without captions.

Bound in red morocco-grain cloth, with red leather corners and spine edged in gilt; gold-stamped spine title "Military photographs."

Spec. Coll. copy: bookseller's ticket on inside front cover of The Antique Bookshop, 66 Victoria Street, McMahons Point. 2060." In modern beige cloth clamshell box, with box title: "World War I Military Photograph Album."
Restrictions
Property rights to the physical object belong to the UC Regents. Literary rights, including copyright, are retained by the creators and their heirs. It is the responsibility of the researcher to determine who holds the copyright and pursue the copyright owner or his or her heir for permission to publish where The UC Regents do not hold the copyright.
Availability
Open for research. STORED OFF-SITE AT SRLF. Advance notice is required for access to the collection. Please contact UCLA Library Special Collections for paging information.