[rollei_list] Re: A TLR Rolleiflex in the Everest
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:23:58 -0400
At 07:40 PM 10/26/2009, CarlosMFreaza wrote:
>Thank you for the explanation Marc, anyway there are some points I
>disagree slightly. Tom Stobart, according the Royal Geographical
>Society records was in charge of the expedition movies while Gregory
>was in charge of the still photographs, in fact you can see in the RGS
>official images pages I quoted previously several photographs about
>Stobart using the cine film camera. The photographs were taken by
>every expedition member, but you can read in the RGS images pages data
>that most of the more significant photographs and more important
>expedition members portraits (except in the Everest summit) were taken
>by Alfred Gregory, and the best B&W portraits were taken with the
>Rolleiflex. These Rolleiflex photographs are included in the official
>RGS images pages with a RGS copyright notice and RGS watermark. I
>have no doubt Gregory kept images taken with the Contax II, the Retina
>II and the Rolleiflex for his three books but he also took images with
>these three cameras for the official expeditions registers, I quote
>again the RGS URL; they are 21 pages with more than 300 photographs,
>the Rolleiflex shots are identifiable clearly and easily:
Carlos
With respect, please read the literature and do
not rely on the most unreliable RGS
website. Pick up THE ASCENT OF EVEREST and Jan
Morris' books and those of Hillary and Tenzing
and a dozen others. Stobart was technically the
cine photographer but the Everest Committee had a
long history of problems with cine photographers
and normally ordered them to work as assistant
still photographers. As events turned out, there
was more cine film from the '22 and '24 climbs than from the '53 ascent.
After the fight with Captain Noell, the Everest
Committee insisted that ALL films be turned over
to them for processing and control. Gregory
might have had some sort of private deal with
them to allow him use of the images, but the
films were taken to London and processed there.
Most Expedition members were not permitted to
touch the official cameras after the '36
Expedition. The record is clear on that, despite
what the RGS might today claim. Only Gregory and
Stobart used the Contax II's and if you have
contrary knowledge other than vague blatherings
from the RGS, I would like to know of this. Had
Gregory permitted anyone other than Stobart to
use the Contax gear, this would have violated
their employment contracts, and Gregory and the
person using the gear would not have been paid
their salary. It was a draconian contract,
insisted on by Lord Hunt. The Everest Committee
was quite unhappy with what they regarded as the
slipshod methods used by Shipton on the '51 South
Face recon Expedition. The nasty Executive
Secretary was retired and dead by then, but the
philosophy remained, of not trusting
photographers as they always seemed to want to
make money out of their pictures.
A minor point: when Tenzing and Hillary
summitted, the word was privately sent to Buck
Place by James Morris, again with the assistance
of the Indian Army. Queen Elizabeth shared this
with her mother, and the Queen Mum insisted that
Howard-Bury, the leader of the '21 Recon
Expedition, and Brigadier Norton, the final
leader of the '24 Climb, be notified. They
were: Howard-Bury was then living in Morocco
with his catamite, but, what the hey, this was
real stuff, and we can ignore the foibles of the
very higher ranks of the British aristocracy, can't we?
Again, the RGS website is not a terribly reliable
source. I can send you a bibliography of around
25 or so books and articles you ought to read
before opining on the topic. I can do so
off-list. My primary interest is in the Prewar
British expeditions but I do have some interest
in the '53 climb and I was the guy who made Sir
Edmund cough up the serial numbers from his
Retina, after all. I've been researching this
for more than a quarter of a century.
I was also the guy who called Tom Holzell in '99
to tell him they had found Captain Mallory's
corpse. He and I are the two hold-outs who still
feel that Irvine's body is still there, with the
two VP Kodaks on it, on the North Face. The
others have figured out that the body is buried
somewhere beneath the Rongbuk Glacier but this
seems silly: bodies do not roll off the North
Face other than in the Grand Couloir, a "Slide to
Death", as Brigadier Norton called it. Hell, the
oxygen cylinders left by Mallory have been
found. They did not roll off the mountain. They were on the North-East Ridge.
A climber around 1980 working up the South-East
Face -- "I am glad we shall not have to attempt
that monster", Mallory said -- found leather and
metal strap pieces on the scarf of the Face. She
threw them away not realizing their significance
until later. Mallory made the top and he then in
his school-boy exuberance, tossed the exhausted
oxygen cylinders down that awesome face, with
their carriers which had leather and metal
buckles. There are a hundred bits of evidence
showing that Mallory himself or Mallory and
Irvine summitted but, then, a REAL summit is when
you reach the top and return alive, and that did
not happen in '24. That Mallory's corpse lacked
a copy of the picture of himself and his wife
which he had pledged to leave at the top means to
me that he made it, though others do not
understand the significance of this
lack. Mallory was a post-pubescent child in most
regards. But he was the finest rock climber of
his generation if not of all time, and that
particular time had the North Slope swept free of
ice and snow. It was his perfect climbing terrain.
Sorry to rattle on. Mention Everest, and I go off on tangents!
Seriously, Carlos, would you like me to share the
bibliography with you? It will help you
understand a lot more about the politics of the
'53 climb. And allow me to thank you for
bringing Gregory's book to my knowledge: the
Everest folks seem to be unaware of its existence.
Marc
msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!
---
Rollei List
- Post to rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Subscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'subscribe'
in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Unsubscribe at rollei_list-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with
'unsubscribe' in the subject field OR by logging into www.freelists.org
- Online, searchable archives are available at
//www.freelists.org/archives/rollei_list
Other related posts:
