Ponting, Herbert

Herbert George Ponting was born March 21, 1870 in the city of Salisbury ( Wiltshire ), England , in the family of the bank employee Francis William Ponting and his wife Mary Sydenham ^[1] . After leaving school, he got a job at one of the banks in Liverpool . In 1892 he emigrated to the United States ( California ), where he met Mary Biddle Eliot, whom he married in 1895. Not without financial help from his family, Ponting acquired a fruit farm in Obernai , but his commercial venture was unsuccessful, and six years later (according to other sources in 1898 ^[2] ) he returned with his family to England, but soon returned back to USA ^[3] .

Back in 1900, Ponting was seriously carried away by a new direction in art - photography, and in the same year he became the winner of a photo exhibition organized by Bausch & Lomb . His work was also exhibited at Kodak during the World Exposition in St. Louis (1904) ^[2] . He showed interest in the , which attracted the attention of the company , the largest publisher of stereographic photographs, which invited him to go to Japan . In 1901, Ponting left his wife with two young children, and went on his first of many trips to the Far East, during which he visited Japan, Manchuria , Korea , Russia , India , China , Java and Burma . In 1904-1905 he worked as a correspondent for Harper's Weekly magazine and covered the events of the Russo-Japanese War ^[4] . In addition, Ponting filmed in the French and Swiss Alps . By the end of the 1910s, he had a reputation as the best traveler photographer in the world. In 1910, his first, illustrated by numerous photographs, was published, “Japan. In the homeland of the lotus "( Eng. In Lotus-Land Japan ) ^[1] .

In 1909, Robert Scott invited Herbert Ponting to take part in his new Antarctic expedition as a photographer. Since the invention of photography, all expeditions to the polar regions of the Earth had “their” photographers, but never before the Scott expedition were professionals ^[1] .

Ponting was convinced that in addition to shooting static images, filming was no less important for more complete coverage of the expedition (as well as for possible financial profit), for which he took a short training course at the Alfred Samuel Newman factory, whose movie cameras are were specially adapted for work in polar regions ^[1] .

The work of the expedition of Scott Ponting began to take off on board the expeditionary ship Terra Nova and continued until his departure from Antarctica on March 4, 1912. He shot hundreds of meters of film, as well as more than a thousand negatives , on which he captured the Antarctic landscapes, the wildlife of Antarctica and the daily work and life of the expedition members. He sought to create perfectly balanced photographs, for which expedition members often had to pose for him. Among them, the term “ponting” has even come into use, as it means posing for Ponting. During one of these photo shoots, Thomas Klissold, the cook of the expedition, became a victim of art, having suffered a concussion after falling from an iceberg, on top of which Ponting captured him ^{[4] [5]} . In addition to his direct work, Ponting, to the best of his ability, took part in the daily routine work of the expedition. During the polar night, he, like many of its other participants, lectured many times on the art of photography and his many travels.

... among the officers and among the sailors there was no one who would be bored with Ponting's lectures with a demonstration of his own inimitable pictures that led us to distant lands. We looked for an hour in Burma, India, Japan, admired the flowers, trees, female faces that make up such a striking contrast with our situation, and became kinder from this.

- Epsley Cherry-Garrard ^[5]

Robert Scott in his diaries spoke very warmly about Herbert Ponting both as an outstanding personality, harmoniously blending into the team, and as a professional in his field:

Perhaps the most excellent quality is the amazing ability to capture picturesque, spectacular shots. Therefore, the layout of his shots is unusually good. With some instinct, he accurately determines the ratio of the foreground and perspective, skillfully captures elements of wildlife in the frame. By the skillful use of different objects and a greater or lesser exposure, he emphasizes the subtle shadow effects on the snow and reproduces its amazing transparency. He is an artist, in love and his work. The soul rejoices when you listen to his enthusiastic stories about the results achieved and his plans for the future.

- R. Scott ^[6]

However, on her return from Antarctica, Herbert Ponting stopped traveling and taking photographs. He bought the rights to the video footage from the French film company Gaumont ^[1] and concentrated his efforts on numerous trips around the country, during which he lectured and showed photos and film materials about the expedition and the fate of Captain Scott (which he only found out in February 1913). During the First World War, he sent to the front copies of his filming, which was regarded not so much as the memory of Scott, but as an example of "devotion to the goal, ideal and duty." In 1921, Ponting's book, The Great White South , was published, illustrated with 164 photographs. She was a huge success ^[4] . And in 1924, a feature film about Scott’s expedition “The ” was released, which received great recognition ^[3] .

With the advent of video-synchronized technology, Ponting decided that it would be “a very important addition to the interests of history,” and began three years of painstaking work to create a new version of “silence,” which he spent £ 10,000 on. The result of this work was the film "90 degrees south latitude" ( Eng. 90 ° South ), which was released in 1933. The film, like almost all of Ponting's commercial endeavors, did not bring financial benefits to the author, and Ponting, in his own words, "was struck both physically and financially." He died in London of a heart attack on February 7, 1935. ^[1]

His film “The Great White Silence”, which became a real British epic about the heroic era of polar research, was restored and republished in 2011 ^[7] .

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  The Great Wall of China (1907)

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  Walls of Old Delhi

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  In the Japanese garden

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  Officers of Terra Nova

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  Scott at Cape Evans , October 1911

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  Terra Nova in pack ice

• Ian Christie. Ponting, Herbert George (1870–1935), photographer and film-maker . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Date accessed March 31, 2015. (link unavailable) The most complete biography of Herbert Ponting on the website of the Oxford electronic library
• Herbert Ponting's Captain Scott photography . Telegraph Media Group. Date of treatment March 31, 2015. Photo gallery of Herbert Ponting
• HERBERT PONTING (1870-1935 ) . Beetles + Huxley. Date of contact March 31, 2015. Herbert Ponting's photo gallery on Beetles & Huxley
• Ponting - The Jorney South . Getty Images Gallery. Date accessed March 31, 2015. Ponting's Photo Gallery at Getty Images Gallery