Forgotten Colours of the Past

In Palestine Hurley worked with No. 1 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps. As a photographer and film-maker he flew in the squadron’s aircraft. The photograph shows two Bristol F.2B Fighters outside a canvas hangar. A tiny service instruction, “LIFT HERE”, is visible on the aircraft at left. It is so small that the regular Paget screen breaks the lettering into unreadable colour fragments in a conventional reconstruction. Details like this led to a dedicated algorithm in Color-Screen: it first determines the screen geometry precisely and only then reconstructs the final image.

Hurley spent more than three months photographing the Western Front, often working close to the fighting. He took considerable risks to obtain his images. The photograph shows two disabled British tanks near Tank Corner in the Ypres Salient. A green camouflage net can still be seen draped over the tanks, intended to conceal them in grass — although almost no grass remained on the churned and devastated battlefield.

By the time Hurley reached Palestine, the main fighting for Gaza was already over. The army therefore allowed him to re-stage some scenes for photographs and film. The State Library of New South Wales describes this image as most likely staged. Back in London, Hurley helped prepare the Australian Official War Pictures and Photographs exhibition at the Grafton Galleries. Some of his composite enlargements were more than six metres across; the colour Paget images were projected as lantern slides. In his diary Hurley stressed the realistic effect of the war pictures. He recorded applause for the colour projections and daily attendance rising from about 600 to 900 visitors; on one Sunday more than a thousand people came.