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Still Life is a unique and hauntingly beautiful photographic study of the Antarctic huts that served as expedition bases for explorations led by Captain Robert Falcon Scott and Sir Ernest Shackleton. At the turn of the twentieth century Antarctica was the focus of one of the last great races of exploration and discovery. Known as the 'heroic age', from 1895 to 1917 Antarctic explorers set off from their huts in search of adventure, science and glory but some, such as Scott, were never to return. The World Wars intervened and the huts were left as time capsules of Edwardian life; a portrait of King Edward VII hangs amid seal blubber, sides of mutton, a jar of gherkins, penguin eggs, cufflinks and darned trousers. One of New Zealand's best known photographers, Jane Ussher, was invited by the Antarctic Heritage Trust to record 'the unusual, the hidden and minutae of these sites'. The Executive Director of the Trust, Nigel Watson, provides a fascinating introduction to the history and atmosphere of each hut and detailed photographic captions.
Jane Ussher is one of New Zealand's foremost portrait photographers, best known for the impressive body of work she developed during twenty-nine years as chief photographer at the New Zealand Listener, New Zealand's leading arts and current affairs weekly magazine. Jane's work has also been published in several books, Gone North (2004) with Dame Fiona Kidman, Jane Ussher Portraits (2004) and Martin Bosley Cooks (2006), and her work features regularly in magazines such as NZ Geographic, Sunday Magazine, Life & Leisure and House & Garden, Metro and North & South. Created with her favourite camera, a medium format Hasselblad, Jane's images are beautiful, revealing, often sombre, and always true to the integrity of the person or object she is photographing. She lives in Auckland with her husband Grant Gallagher and their son Nicholas.
Nigel Watson is the Executive Director of Antarctic Heritage Trust. The Trust cares, amongst other heritage sites, for the expedition bases left by Captain Scott and Ernest Shackleton in Antarctica. Nigel has spent the past decade working to save this amazing legacy for current and future generations. He has led, or participated in, expeditions to Antarctica annually over that time. Nigel is a graduate in Antarctic studies and has qualifications in law and commerce. When not working, thinking or dreaming of Antarctica, Nigel is busy with his wife raising three boys in one of the gateways to Antarctica - Christchurch, New Zealand.
