You're as Cold as Ice

I’ve been accused of being a shut-in. I like staying home, working in the yard, and eating gumbo. I’m not the type of person who would love to eat at fancy restaurants every night. However, for someone who supposedly is a shut-in, I’ve been to every continent on earth except Antarctica. This is one of my goals. I’ve seen documentaries about exploration cruises to Antarctica, but everyone looks like they are over 65. They all have orange coats, and I wonder if that’s coincidence, or a cruise gift.

Herbert Ponting was the photographer on Robert Falcon Scott’s Terra Nova Expedition in 1910. Illustration had been the art form used to document scientific expeditions for centuries. Ponting and Scott were determined to use photography as this resource. Ponting’s work, especially his film work, is the basis for every wildlife documentary we see now. After 14 months with the expedition, Ponting returned to England to catalogue the photographs. The Scott expedition, unfortunately, ended tragically with Scott and the other expedition members died from exposure, malnutrition, and exhaustion. While it may seem gruesome, he was buried inside the Ross Ice Shelf. His body will slowly move toward the sea, and eventually be set adrift inside an iceberg. This seems remarkably fitting for the polar explorer.

Ponting’s images were too sharp and clear for an Edwardian audience who preferred photographs soft and painterly. But this technique was a precursor to modernist photography and the sharp focus of Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, and Willard Van Dyke.


The Worst Journey in the World

Patrick Keohane by Herbert Ponting

I agree this title seems hyperbolic, but it the actual title of a book about Robert Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica. It puts many issues in perspective. A couple of weeks ago a young designer was quite upset and seemed unable to work. When I asked him what had happened, he explained that all of his black t-shirts had been washed with the detergent with bleach and now they were dark gray. This, somehow, seems less trying than someone his age a century ago trudging across the Antarctic ice.

The title also makes me feel stupid when I complained that sitting in coach on Southwest for a flight to Las Vegas was the worst journey in the world. It was a tight space and my neck hurt later, but again, compared to death by freezing, not so awful.

In the spirit of winter, for everyone feeling like they are about to embark on that terrible holiday journey, enjoy Herbert Ponting's images of the frozen south pole. Be glad you don't need to take canned meats.

Sean Adams

