10 Beautiful, Sometimes Troubling Photographs of the Arctic and Antarctica

Camille Seaman spent a decade photographing the world’s polar regions and picked the best of the best images for her new book.

March 01, 2015 Emily J. Gertz

'M/V Prince Albert II Bellsund,' Svalbard, May 2009

“Being so far north often felt like a dream: the silence, the otherworldly quality of the light,” Seaman writes. “It is easy to feel small here. Easy to feel fragile.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Looking at the Icebergs,' Ross Sea off Franklin Island, Antarctica, December 2006

John Palmer, resident doctor on the I/B *Kapitan Klebnikov*, “looks off into the distance where two massive icebergs are about to collide in a strong swell.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Rasmussen Glacier,' Scoresbysund, eastern Greenland, August 2006

“Not many people on the planet get to spend time on the east side of Greenland,” Seaman writes. “Those who visit Scoresbysund are rarely disappointed.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Russian Coal Mining Settlement of Barentsburg,' Svalbard, 2010

“Barentsburg is still a functional coal mining settlement with 500 full-time Russian and Ukranian miners living in Soviet-era dwellings,” Seaman writes. “The miners have been known to run out of food and supplies, which are shipped in from Russia.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'The Things We Did (That We Cannot Forget),' Bamsebu, Van Keulenfjorden, Svalbard, July 2010

“Not far from this old overturned whaling boat,” writes Seaman, “lies the remains of 550 beluga, or white whales.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Gentoo Penguins at Port Lockroy,' Antarctic Peninsula, December 2005

Seaman notes that “Port Lockroy was established as a British base during World War Two. It was in operation until 1962...[and] has the greatest number of visitors each year, more than anywhere else in Antarctica. It must be because of its awesome gift shop and post office.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Reindeer Over the Kings of South Georgia,' South Georgia Island, March 2010

“In the whaling days of South Georgia,” Seaman writes, “the Norwegians brought reindeer with them as a food supply,” leading to this strange encounter with species from opposite ends of the Earth.

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'On the Edge,' Svalbard, June 2010

“She looked at us as we sat in our zodiac. The passengers were eating chocolate covered strawberries and sipping champagne from long-stemmed glasses,” Seaman writes. “I wished her luck as I took this photo.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Siberian Drifters,' Svalbard, July 2008

“Taking photos of walruses hauled out on a beach can be like photographing a bunch of potatoes.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

'Arctic Tern,' Poolepynten, Svalbard, June 2010

“She flies from the Arctic to the Antarctic every year,” Seaman writes. “Because her egg is so well camouflaged, I am in danger of stepping on it and she does not like that.”

(Photo: Camille Seaman, courtesy Princeton Architectural Press)

10 Beautiful, Sometimes Troubling Photographs of the Arctic and Antarctica — 13 Kids’ Drawings That Inspire Us to Save the Ocean

Check out the 13 winners of a children’s art contest sponsored by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s marine debris program.

They were chosen from more than 600 entries from schoolkids across the country, to help “raise awareness about the global problem of marine debris.”

From a seven-armed purple octopus with a protest sign to a chubby walrus swimming through an obstacle course of trash, the drawings are full of charm, despite the downbeat subject matter. The kids were clearly inspired by the message of protecting the marine environment.

Hopefully their optimism is contagious, because scientists have estimated that there are already around five grocery bags’ worth of water bottles, food wrappers, and other plastic bits in the oceans for every foot of coastline on the planet. That amount could double by 2025 if we don’t improve how we manage this trash.

Human-produced debris in the ocean is a major hazard for wildlife. A recent study reports on tens of thousands of animals injured or killed by plastic debris—many of them endangered sea turtles, right whales, or monk seals.

One leading marine debris problem is the scourge of plastic fishing nets abandoned at sea. Last fall, a NOAA vessel on a cleanup mission collected about 57 tons of debris northwest of Hawaii. Most of it was abandoned “ghost nets”—including some that had ensnared three green sea turtles, which the NOAA crew were able to save.

Every year between 2003 and 2011, Camille Seaman traveled to the Arctic and Antarctic as a photographer for scientific voyages and commercial vessels. Melting Away: A Ten-Year Journey through Our Endangered Polar Regions features 75 photographs from those expeditions.

Naturally, the book contains gorgeous images of seemingly pristine, icy wilderness. It takes a trained eye to pick out the signs of climate change in many of these pictures—expanses of open water that should be ice-covered, the tongue of a glacier halting before a pile of bare rocks.

The images that reveal the presence of people at the poles are just as intriguing, and often subtle—as when a wild animal stares directly into Seaman’s lens.

During what would become her final voyage to the Arctic, Seaman watched a ravenous polar bear, deprived of the sea ice it needed to hunt seals, swim five miles to a bit of land, then climb a 30-foot-high ridge studded with the nests of migratory birds.

“I watched as this hungry bear went from nest to nest, devouring the eggs and young chicks. In less than an hour he had wiped out an entire generation of king eider ducks, common eider ducks, glaucous gulls, kittiwakes and little auks,” Seaman writes.

She realized in that moment that what happens in the Arctic is connected to the rest of the world: A desperate polar bear resorts to a meal of sea birds; “a rise in the insect populations in Europe” when no birds arrive to eat the bugs; increased prices for food when the insects go on to damage crops.

Melting Away is her attempt to make the rest of the world see those connections, and do something to save the icy places she loves.

Enter Photo Gallery

'M/V Prince Albert II Bellsund,' Svalbard, May 2009

'Looking at the Icebergs,' Ross Sea off Franklin Island, Antarctica, December 2006

'Rasmussen Glacier,' Scoresbysund, eastern Greenland, August 2006

'Russian Coal Mining Settlement of Barentsburg,' Svalbard, 2010

'The Things We Did (That We Cannot Forget),' Bamsebu, Van Keulenfjorden, Svalbard, July 2010

'Gentoo Penguins at Port Lockroy,' Antarctic Peninsula, December 2005

'Reindeer Over the Kings of South Georgia,' South Georgia Island, March 2010

'On the Edge,' Svalbard, June 2010

'Siberian Drifters,' Svalbard, July 2008

'Arctic Tern,' Poolepynten, Svalbard, June 2010

13 Kids’ Drawings That Inspire Us to Save the Ocean