Antarctica
Photographs
My photographs that were taken in the Weddell Sea and on
the Continental ice of Antarctica from Atka Bay to Halley
Station, focus on the colors and life of this white on white
environment. I often use landscape as the inspiration for
my paintings and in the photographs one cannot avoid being
aware of the physical place in which the wildlife makes
its home and raises its young.
I am attracted to photographs that are simple, capture
a characteristic and yet are abstract in their realism:
The question can be, “Is that a real event, a real
moment?” My response was and still remains, “Yes,
incredible.”
These photographs are intended to be a series by themselves.
I like that the photographs convey an entirely different
sense of the spirit of Antarctica, the wind and the cold
than that of my paintings. I also like myself as camera-
person who had to exercise patience and direct involvement
in taking the photos. It is a chore to tote the gear over
miles of ice and set-up to take a family portrait of Emperor
penguins in a place nearly never visited by people. Except
for the sounds of the rookeries and the wind, there is a
complete absence of industrial sound. Photographs lack sound
or any suggestion of it. It is as if each scene has been
encapsulated and frozen in crystal pure ice.
I have been to the continent six times, some previous journeys
as an expedition artist with Quark Expeditions.