Figire 1 – Autochrome of Shackleton’s Endurance Under Full Sail, 1915, by Frank Hurley, from Shackleton’s “South.” In the public domain because of its age.

We have been talking a bit about fact that 2014 marked the centenary of the begining of World War I.  Lesser known, but perhaps more positively it marked the centennial of Ernest Shackleton’s Imperial Trans-antarctic Expedition – and the so called Worst Journey in the World. The BBC recently highlighted the return of photographer Mark Chilvers and journalist Jonathan Thompson from the Antarctic, where they went to mark the centenary and to follow, so to speak, in Shackleton’s footsteps.  The result is a set of  wonderful and stunning portraits and bio-interviews with some of today Antarctic explorers.  While we now have gps, cell/satellite phones, and the internet, as an environment the Antarctic remains unforgiving and its environment temporally leveling. It still takes a special breed of personality to attempt the Antarctic in more that a tourist mode.  Indeed, even as a tourist the experience can be transformational. Chilver’s beautiful photographs bring us eye-to-eye with these modern explorers, Shackleton’s heirs.