Magnificent photos from the sharp end of historical adventure

By Gege Li

Photos Royal Geographical Society (with IBG)

MAGNIFICENT adventures are captured in this selection of images from the ongoing Lights and Shadows exhibition, organised by the Royal Geographical Society in London.

The scenes from travels and expeditions on display are taken from the society’s historic image collection, and reveal the marked progress of photography between 1851 and 1962.

Antarctica’s striking vastness is captured in the above image by Herbert Ponting, photographer and film-maker for the British Antarctic Expedition from 1910 to 1913, led by Robert Falcon Scott.

The next image was taken in 1935 on Kellas Peak, which is on the border between India and the Tibet region and is named after Scottish mountaineer and chemist Alexander Kellas.

The four smaller images show, clockwise from top left: Mount Fuji in Japan, taken by Ponting in 1907; Tenzing Norgay and Edmund Hillary – the first people to summit Mount Everest, in 1953 – drinking tea in the Western Cwm valley that forms part of the route up the mountain, taken by fellow expedition member George Band; waves from the Southern Ocean crashing aboard the cargo vessel Moshulu in 1939, taken by apprentice seaman Eric Newby; and, finally, the crew of the lifeboat James Caird, which included Ernest Shackleton and expedition photographer Frank Hurley, pulling the boat across Antarctic ice after their ship, Endurance, sank in 1915.

Lights and Shadows is at the Royal Geographical Society in London until 10 December, and also online.

Source: Humans - newscientist.com