With Scott to the Pole

Herbert Ponting was born in England in 1870. Rejecting a career in banking, he moved to California and it was there that he discovered his passion for photography. His early success led to more than a decade of travel taking photographs in China, India, Japan and Spain. His growing reputation persuaded Scott to invite him to join the Terra Nova Expedition as official photographer. His photographs of the Antarctic landscape and his portraits of expedition members established him as one of the great photographers of the twentieth century. He died in 1935. Dr Beau Riffenburgh is a historian at the Scott Polar Institute, University of Cambridge, where he specialises in Antarctic and Arctic exploration and serves as Editor of the journal Polar Record. His most recent book, Nimrod: Ernest Shackleton and the Extraordinary Story of the British Antarctic Expedition 1907-09, is published by Bloomsbury. He is currently editor of Routledge's multi-volume Encyclopedia of the Antarctic.