Photography by Renato Granieri.
Corkscrewing their necks skyward, golden chests glinting like medallions as they basked in icy sunshine, the planet’s largest king penguin colony erupted into a fanfare of triumphant trumpeting calls.
In late October, St Andrew’s Bay on the subantarctic island of South Georgia was still blanketed in fresh snow. Languorous elephant seals lazily twitched their frozen whiskers at the season’s first human arrivals. Unsteady on their newfound feet, clumsy king penguin chicks waddled in oversized chestnut-brown fur coats, harassing weary parents for food.
Sitting amongst it all, caught up in the chaos of natural life unfolding in the polar wilderness, I cried mostly for joy and partly in self-pity, wishing I could forever freeze these precious moments in time.
For more than 200 years, the seventh continent has captivated intrepid explorers. Fame and fortune were obvious drivers for early expeditions, but anyone who’s sailed below Antarctica’s towering icebergs and glimpsed glaciers rolling into infinite horizons inevitably succumbs to a life-long gnawing obsession.
Famed explorer Ernest Shackleton’s own poetic first impressions, published under his nom de plume Nemo, sum up a fascination with the unknown.
“Shall we learn that you come from the mountains?
Shall we call you a frozen sea?
Shall we sail Northward and leave you, still a Secret forever to be?”