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Australian soldier taking cover behind a tree in the shell-torn Château Wood, November 5, 1917.

 Australian soldier taking cover behind a tree in the shell-torn Château Wood, November 5, 1917.



This photograph, taken today 104 years ago, is a "combined negatives" photograph by Australian war photographer Frank Hurley, who took many well-known photographs during the Third Battle of Ypres and the First World War in general.

The premise behind "combined negatives" was to combine and merge several different photographs into a single, impressive picture, achieved through a very sophisticated technique.

Hurley himself described Ypres during the Battle of Passchendaele as "a weird and wonderful sight, with the destruction wildly beautiful".

Through the "combined negatives" he sought to capture the carnage and beauty of the war all at once, conveying dramatic and adventurous scenes otherwise not possible with the available technology.

In this particular "combined negatives" photograph, named "Battle Scarred Sentinels", several different photographs have been combined. 

As can be seen on Pic 2 of this post, the original photograph of this Australian soldier taking cover has had photographs of a cloudy sky and a shell exploding in the middle of the road added to it.

Some of the most famous of his "combined negatives" photographs include "The Raid" and "Morning at Passchendaele". 

However, Hurley still had to capture scenes in the heat of battle, going to great lenthgs and putting himself at great danger to take the perfect photographs at critical moments. 

He aqquired the nickname "the mad photographer" among Australian troops.

Although he undoubtedly produced some of the most stunning photographs in the history of warfare, Hurley was heavily criticized at the time for twisting the reality of the war through the "combined negatives" and thereby diminishing the documentary value of his photography, with the official Australian war historian Charles Bean labeling his photographs as "little short of fake".

As a result of Hurley never being willing to compromise on the quality and nature of his photographs, he was dismissed by the Australian Imperial Force in March 1918.


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