SOUTH GEORGIA — JANUARY 1986

Before the Camera Became My Career

Long before photography became my profession, I travelled to South Georgia with the British Army in January 1986. It was an extraordinary experience early in my working life and, although completely separate from my later career as a professional photographer, it left me with a small personal archive of photographs from one of the most remote places on earth.

We travelled from Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands aboard RFA Sir Bedivere, crossing around 800 miles of the South Atlantic to South Georgia. We spent just over a week on the island, moving through a spectacular landscape of mountains, glaciers, snow and ice in an environment unlike anywhere I had experienced before.

The photographs here weren't taken on assignment — I wasn't yet a professional photographer. They are simply my own record of an extraordinary military adventure: the men I served alongside, the conditions we experienced and moments that have remained with me for forty years.

There was also an extraordinary encounter at the end of the adventure. Members of A Company met the legendary French explorer and oceanographer Jacques Cousteau, who was visiting aboard his famous research vessel Calypso. After our time on South Georgia, meeting Cousteau and seeing Calypso provided a remarkable final chapter to the journey.

A few years later my life took a completely different direction. I left the Army and photography became my profession — eventually taking me around the world again, this time with cameras rather than a rifle.