ABSTRACT
The 2010 digital restoration of The Great White Silence (Ponting, 1924) commemorates the centenary of the departure of the British Antarctic Expedition (1910-13). Herbert G. Ponting’s photographic record of the expedition has been integral to the narratives that have emerged around the loss of the polar party. The stills and cine-photography formed a strand of the expedition’s scientifi c research by offering a visual record of the region. A study of the provenance of the 2010 restoration discerns a supplementary layer of information (residual marks of production and decay) beneath the fascia of image and narrative. The interpretation of instructions that are scratched into the fi lm and attributed to Ponting have informed the “return” of color in the 2010 release of Silence .
