Face to Face: Polar Portraits

With this collection of photographs and portraits of explorers, Lewis-Jones provides us with a visual history of the men and women, the explorers and documentarians—Robert Falcon Scott, Ernest Henry Shackleton, Mary Qulitalik—who studied and settled the most unforgiving regions of the world. Lewis-Jones brings together classic black-and-white images—stark glass-plate negatives, daguerreotypes, and magic lantern slides, some never before made public—from the Scott Polar Research Institute, and modern-day color portraits of people working and living in polar regions from renowned expedition photographer Martin Hartley. Images of ice-crusted faces, parka-covered heads, bleak landscapes of ice, and steely, determined gazes work with biographical information and commentary to tell the story of exploration and life, and give us a glimpse at the enduring spirit and curiosity that drove individuals to explore the furthest reaches of our planet. (Dec.)