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Face to Face Polar Portraits Paperback

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We all know the type: knit cap or fur-trimmed parka, frost-nipped cheeks, ice-encrusted beard, and those sharp, piercing eyes that have gazed upon trackless wilderness and seen the heart of darkness in a world of light. And yet with Face to Face: Polar Portraits, Scott Polar Research Institute curator Huw Lewis-Jones has managed the seemingly impossible: among these all-too-familiar images, he has gathered together a collection of polar portraits which makes this image anew, a hundred images whose particularity and difference leap forth from the printed pages. Yes, there is Tom Crean, iconic as ever, and there is Shackleton, brash and retiring all at once, but mixed in among them is an eclectic array of explorers and adventurers we have never known before, or have known but never seen in this light. Leaping from the oldest -- the iconic 1845 daguerreotype of Sir John Franklin with his cocked hat and telescope -- to the newest -- a 2008 photo of Trevor Potts, the only man to retrace Shackleton's legendary march -- Lewis-Jones assembles a panoply of portraiture that brings rich surprises at every turn of the page. Among my personal favorites are those of women, both explorers and the partners of explorers, in whose eyes there is a still more steely resolve, and yet a visible sorrow. Kathleen Scott, in a posture that might at first seem to convey repose, offers sustenance in her gaze and steadiness in her hand; it's little wonder that Robert Falcon Scott kept two versions of this portrait near at hand; Josephine Peary, in a peaked hood that lends a strange elfin character to her face, almost dares the photographer to make her flinch (and she of course would not!). There are also some striking and seldom-seen portraits of lesser-known Polar figures, such as John Powles Cheyne, whose Quixotic quest to reach the Pole by balloon was dubbed "balloonacy" by Punch; Stig Hallgren, the sole survivor of an ice-tractor crash, the outline of his snow-goggles almost tattooed upon his face by exposure; and Mary Qulitalik, whose portrayal of Niriuniq in the film Atanarjuat challenged stereotypical film images of Inuit people.

Lewis-Jones also contributes an excellent overview of the emergence of photography in the nineteenth century, and its enormous effect on the visual culture of the day, illustrated with period images and well-chosen cartoons, which alone would be more than worth the price of the book. The distinguished explorer Sir Ranulph Fiennes adds a pithy introduction, and the book concludes with a discussion with photographic master Martin Hartley,reflects on the the challenges faced by polar photographers in the past, and gives thought-provoking insights both into his present practice, and the future of photography in the digital age. This is no ordinary coffee-table book; with its singular images, the high quality of their reproduction, and the rich array of historical contexts provided for every image, Face to Face is quite simply the most engaging collection of Polar portraiture ever assembled.