Freeze Frame: Historic Polar Images

Historic Polar Images, 1845-1982, from the Scott Polar Research Institute. A collection of historic images of life and work in the polar regions. The Freeze Frame website presents an online catalogue of over 20,000 images from the historic negative collections at the Scott Polar Research Institute. The negatives cover expeditions into the Arctic and Antarctic during the period 1845-1982 and representing some of the most important visual resources for research into British and international polar exploration. These images are presented with ancillary material from the collections of the Institute, and critical essays contextualising much of the material. There are iconic and familiar images from the ‘Heroic Age’ of Antarctic expeditions of Robert F. Scott and Ernest Shackleton, as well as other generations of explorers who braved the polar regions before and after them. With remote access to these digital images, we hope to encourage new audiences to explore the polar world for themselves. The whole resource illustrates the development of polar technologies, including photography, over this period. For the first time researchers will be able to search and browse the selected content, much of which was uncatalogued or inaccessible because of the inherent fragility of the negatives from which the images are taken.