A Cold Place

August 11, 2004 11:18 PM

Henry Kaiser visited Antarctica in 2001 and kept a photojournal. He brought back some amazing photos of ice towers, strange and gross creatures, ice caves, ice dives, and a South Pole exorcism, as well as videoclips. And if you liked those, there are more photos of the icy continent here.
posted by euphorb (11 comments total)

This is great. I love people who a) have the stones to live down there and b) tell us about it, in pictures and/or words.

Also? The pic linked to "gross"? THE THING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by WolfDaddy at 11:38 PM on August 11, 2004

What kind of assmunch takes a 12-string, notoriously hard to keep in tune, to the fucking South Pole? I mean, I'm sure that playing the guitar at *all* makes this guy a sex-god in his pasty-scientist circles, but seriously, if I could channel the thoughts of his guitar, itself, they would go something like this:

"You ASSHAT!"

P.S. Cute idea using the Pole as a slide, really, Jimi would be proud, but with those gloves on, it's pretty obvious he wasn't actually playing jack shit. This guy is King of the Doofi.
posted by scarabic at 12:19 AM on August 12, 2004

Scarabic, Mr. Kaiser is a genuinely serious guitarist and ethnomusicologist. I'd be guessing, though, the guitar at the Pole was mostly for his own amusement and sanity. Check out his musical background at AllMusic.com.
posted by jhiggy at 4:54 AM on August 12, 2004

Excellent post. This is the kind of thing I love most about Mefi.
Thanks for posting it euphorb.
posted by a3matrix at 6:08 AM on August 12, 2004

Wolfdaddy, according to the title of the picture it depicts amphipods(?) eating a seal head.

I'm going to have nightmares about that. I just know it.
posted by bshort at 7:04 AM on August 12, 2004

Why do people that want people to look at their photos insist upon posting them in a size too small for proper viewing? With regret, I avoid all sites that do this, no matter how tantalizing.
posted by rushmc at 7:22 AM on August 12, 2004

Nice post, euphorb!
posted by taz at 7:41 AM on August 12, 2004

Kaiser went down there as part of the NSF Antarctic Artists & Writers Program--now accepting grant submissions, I believe.

Checkout fellow artist Norbert Wu's work on PBS.
posted by culberjo at 9:01 AM on August 12, 2004

Scarabic, you have no idea how funny that is.
posted by kenko at 9:25 AM on August 12, 2004

For some strange reason these remind me of a friend's pics at Burning Man a few years back - right down to the little green alien guy inserted into pictures for yuks.

Maybe not so strange - Antarctica and the Black Rock Desert are both pretty barren. The sky scapes and the false perception of distance due to the air clarity are very similar.

Oh who am I kidding; it was just the little green alien guy and the goofy poses.

Great post.
posted by jennaratrix at 10:01 AM on August 12, 2004

All amazing. I especially like the shots of 120 mile horizons from Erebus.
posted by Songdog at 12:20 PM on August 12, 2004