As they approached the South Pole on the 16th of January 1912, Captain Robert Falcon Scott and his four companions were hoping to find an unbroken horizon of ice no different from the one they had travelled across for weeks and months. What greeted them instead was a black flag planted thirty-four days earlier by Roald Amunden’s Norwegian expedition.

The tragic story of what led to and followed this moment is most famously and poignantly told in Scott own diary. Less well known but equally moving are the photographs that Scott took in the vicinity of Cape Evans while learning photography from Herbert Ponting, and later during his trek south towards the Pole.

Whether individually or as a group, Captain Scott’s photographs are infused with a quiet simplicity that differs from the grand compositions of Ponting. Their unencumbered aesthetics allows them to capture both the vulnerability of the men and their tenacity, the dreariness of the Ice Barrier and the thrill of discovery, the weight of the sledges and the companionship of the ponies.

Rediscovered and acquired by the Scott Polar Research Institute in 2014, Scott’s negatives had previously been known only through a series of postcard-size (10 × 8 cm) contact prints produced in 1935. Through its exclusive collaboration with the Institute, Salto Ulbeek was granted privileged access to the negatives, allowing them to be printed for the first time since 1935 - and this time on a larger scale. The result is a series of platinum-palladium prints of unprecedented quality that not only transport viewers to the very heart of Scott’s Antarctic experience, but also achieve a subtlety and permanence unknown to Scott.

All prints are produced in Salto Ulbeek’s atelier in Belgium. For full details on the availability of edition numbers and sizes, please select the Enquire button and share the title of the print or prints that have you are interested in.