http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G00363
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Ernest Brooks Gallipoli photograph
Started by
RobL
, Jun 12 2012 07:59 PM
1 reply to this topic
#1
RobL
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- Old Sweats
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Posted 12 June 2012 - 07:59 PM
One of my favourite WW1 Images is this, taken by Ernest Brooks at Gallipoli and showing a British soldier looking at a grave - does anyone know which unit the man was? The caption on the AWM page (I can't find it on the IWM site) doesn't mention - the man has a Long Lee Enfield, and to my eyes his large pack looks to be a 14 pattern one owing to the look of the straps at the back and top looking like the leather ones (hard to explain but the way they dangle, and are rolled on the top, are unlike how the 08 webbing equivalent would look)
http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G00363
http://cas.awm.gov.au/item/G00363
#2
michaeldr
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Posted 13 June 2012 - 11:04 AM
Rob,
There's a good collection of 366 photographs by Brooks here http://digital.nls.u...=...&from_row=1 but I have not spotted your favourite among them
As far as I know Brooks was at Gallipoli with the navy and he transferred to the army only in 1916.
It has to be said that some of his photographs are not always what they seem. His famous picture of two Australians guarding a Turkish sniper decked out with sprigs of shrubbery, is almost certainly a shot taken not on the peninsula, but on one of the islands, with a handy Turkish PoW stood between two cooks (?): Bean has some comments on this in his correspondence if I remember correctly. There is another popular one with a line of British troops leaping out of a trench and rushing forward, which was also taken during training on Lemnos.
I honestly do not know the details of the one which you have mentioned, but doesn't it look just a little too good to be true? The setting-sun going down between the soldier and the cross. To my mind both the soldier, and for that matter the grave too, look to be dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. I'm not convinced that anyone would dig a grave that close to the brink.
Having said that, it's definitely very evocative, and a good example of his work. Have a look at line 2 of page 7, as linked to in para one above: the second and third shots there are also good, evocative shots employing silhouettes.
Best regards
Michael
There's a good collection of 366 photographs by Brooks here http://digital.nls.u...=...&from_row=1 but I have not spotted your favourite among them
As far as I know Brooks was at Gallipoli with the navy and he transferred to the army only in 1916.
It has to be said that some of his photographs are not always what they seem. His famous picture of two Australians guarding a Turkish sniper decked out with sprigs of shrubbery, is almost certainly a shot taken not on the peninsula, but on one of the islands, with a handy Turkish PoW stood between two cooks (?): Bean has some comments on this in his correspondence if I remember correctly. There is another popular one with a line of British troops leaping out of a trench and rushing forward, which was also taken during training on Lemnos.
I honestly do not know the details of the one which you have mentioned, but doesn't it look just a little too good to be true? The setting-sun going down between the soldier and the cross. To my mind both the soldier, and for that matter the grave too, look to be dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. I'm not convinced that anyone would dig a grave that close to the brink.
Having said that, it's definitely very evocative, and a good example of his work. Have a look at line 2 of page 7, as linked to in para one above: the second and third shots there are also good, evocative shots employing silhouettes.
Best regards
Michael
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