Antarctica

The early explorers of Antarctica, notably the British sea captains, Scott and Shackleton, made a point of taking photographers on their expeditions, not just to make scientific records but also to capture the imagination of a European public that was as excited by polar exploration at the turn of the twentieth century as the world was to be, 60 years later, when NASA made the first landings on the Moon.

Tiptoeing briefly in the footsteps of those early Antarctic photographers, most famously Frank Hurley and Herbert Ponting, it seems right to pay homage in to their remarkable innovations and obvious passion for the stark Antarctic environment. I hope the minimalism of these images emphasises the challenges for all the birds and mammals that make Antartica their home. The briefest brush with this extraordinary continent swiftly brings to mind Scott’s observation that: “As one looks across the barren stretches of the pack, it is sometimes difficult to realise what teeming life exists immediately beneath its surface.”