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Icebergs: The Antarctic comes to Town by Dave Cull and Stephen Jaquiery
* Published by Longacre Press
Hellbent for the Pole by Geoffrey Lee Martin
* Published by Random House
Ever since the Titanic sank in 1912 taking 1500 people to their deaths icebergs have exercised a grim fascination. With only one-ninth of their volume visible above the water's surface, they are like modern-day Sirens calling unsuspecting mariners to gaze at their majesty, heedless of the fatal menace that lurks beneath.
The strength of their attraction was displayed in New Zealand last November when a flotilla of them drifted past the South Island, visible from the Otago coastline. The phenomenon, not seen for 70 years, prompted the nation's newspapers and television to carry daily pictures, sometimes from onboard an iceberg.
The Otago Daily Times chief photographer, Stephen Jaquiery, led the charge from Dunedin. He was the first person to land on and take pictures of one of the icebergs and his images were seen around the world.
Soon, reporters and photographers from this country and further afield were queueing for helicopters willing to take them to the ice.
Berg fever hit rock-bottom when somebody had the bright idea of taking Shrek the sheep, made famous for not having had a haircut for several years, on to the ice for a short back and sides.
Jaquiery was there to record it, with backup from another ODT photographer, Peter McIntosh. The silly season came early that year.
Soon enough, these enormous, silent visitors passed, melting into the ocean, perhaps to be reborn as icebergs thousands of years hence.
But some remarkable images remain. The innate beauty of the subjects is made more so by Jaquiery's skill and experience. The wonder of nature and the human achievement that allowed the rest of the world to appreciate the passing of the icebergs are to be celebrated. And so, a book.
Jaquiery, the 2005 Qantas Newspaper Photographer of the year, has produced an amazing body of work but the visit was brief, certainly not long enough to make a book's worth.
As a result, the publisher has had to pad out the book with graphics, illustrations and photographs from other sources to help support the narrative of freelance journalist and broadcaster Dave Cull.
Unfortunately, Cull did not visit the icebergs when they sailed by and we're not even sure if he ever saw them from the coast. This is one of the problems with the book.
He resorts to trying to create a mystery about the origin of the bergs, but fails to make the subject any more interesting than a geography lesson.
Realising that this is not a straightforward photographic book and that first-hand accounts of visits to the ice are needed, he includes some rather unremarkable and sometimes (unintentionally) comical reports from Jaquiery (of course), a TV3 reporter, the TV3 cameraman and a helicopter pilot.
Shrek nearly steals the show with six pages devoted to his visit and 12 pictures from a total of 65.
The photographs are not given room to breathe and are often overlain with text or are awkwardly placed across a gutter. The sequence of the book is disjointed and and the production values are not high enough. Quite frankly, the whole experience leaves me cold.
* Released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sir Edmund Hillary's jaunt to the South Pole, former Herald staffer Geoffrey Lee Martin has written an absorbing account of the last truly great expedition on planet Earth.
Hellbent for the Pole is billed as an insider's account of the race to the South Pole. With his first hand knowledge (Martin covered the event for the Herald, NZPA and the Daily Telegraph in London) he shows us the last flickers of a dying Empire as Sir Vivian Fuchs' team attempts to cross Antarctica by land for the first time.
Hillary was supposed to provide support, but, instead, pressed on to reach the pole ahead of Fuchs.
Was Hillary an upstart colonial or a bold adventurer? Martin leaves it to you to decide, but there's no doubt in his mind.
This extraordinary tale is expertly told with amazing photographs, taken by Martin at the time.
For adventures on ice, this is more like it.
