Antarctica 2020
A balmy 28 degrees.
But why go to Antarctica?
I left for Antarctica with the primary objective of honoring my fathers wishes. Like himself, he intended for me to see the world, gain perspective, and be versed in a large assortment of obscure things. If alive, there is no question he would have covered this land long before me and probably in a much much smaller vessel. I was finally motivated to go by a total frustration in how I was operating. Frustration in the fact that although the work I was doing was critically acclaimed it was often personally unsettling,
I went in hopes of feeling profoundly small. Dwarfed by an infinity of ocean, ice, and remoteness. Rebooted and reinvigorated, with new perspective to carry through frustration.
As we chugged along at twelve knots through the scotia sea it be came clear that despite my immediate vision of infinite ocean, the planet that I live on is much smaller than I have made it to be in my mind. Vast distance can be traversed in time. Although one of the most remote places on the planet, the qualities it shared were so familiar that notably unforgiving land felt accessible. Often as human, I was perceived as “other,” a feeling I both enjoyed as the wildlife were intrigued about why I was there but triggered the social demand to fit in. The demand to feel at home in a place with aspects of familiarity while still changing its mind on a dime as to wether it was a beautiful or deadly day.
Like many, I relish in horizon lines. The finite separation between earth and atmosphere. In Antarctica the land varies. It is ice, bogs, bergs, martian dirt, sometimes lush and sometimes the most barren of barren. Wind dictates wether any moment is breathtakingly beautiful, or terrifyingly fearful. If you can see where earth separates from everything above, and its horizontal, then generally you are doing pretty great. I was lucky enough to experience a lot of great. I recorded horizon lines on a medium format Mamiya 7 with a 65mm lens, and three stocks of film: Cinestill 50D, Ektar 100 and Portra 160.
Most other moments were fleeting and filled with wildlife encounters and locations barely accessible. Thousands of snapshots were taken in these moments trying to record any sort of semblance of what I was experiencing. Often no photograph was taken, trying to relish what was directly in front of me. This amalgam of images was recorded on a Sony A7riii with a 24-70mm or 100-400mm lens.