“Antarctica: Seasons of Water and Ice” is an exhibit of photographs by University of West Florida Oceanographer, Dr. Wade Jeffrey. After a 2020 run at the Pensacola Museum of Art, the images are now on display at UWF’s John C. Pace Library, with a reception and gallery talk to be held Nov. 29.

“Well these are photographs that were taken during two research expeditions, oceanographic expeditions, in 2019 along the western Antarctic Peninsula,” said Jeffrey, a Distinguished University Professor at UWF, where he is director of the Center for Environmental Diagnostics & Bioremediation, as well as the Reuben Askew Institute for Multidisciplinary Studies.

Additionally, he’s the photographer/artist for the exhibit.

He says those two trips in 2019 gave him the unique opportunity to go to the same place — at very different times of the year — for a good look at the contrast in seasonality on the world’s coldest, southernmost continent.

“So, for the first cruise, which we did in late fall or early winter, daylight was as short as six hours a day by the time we finished. And, contrast that with a cruise that we did in late spring/early summer, where there was daylight 24-hours-a day, but sunrise and sunset might have been four hours apart,” he said of the different seasons.

“So, there’s very strong contrast in the amount of light, the type of light that we see, the way it reflects off the water, and the way it reflects off the ice.”

Dr. Jeffrey has been to Antarctica many times dating back to 1981, noting that the scientific objective of his latest expeditions was to gain a better understanding of a unique group of single-cell plankton called mixotrophs that can live and grow like both plants and animals.

Sandra Averhart

Dr. Wade Jeffrey’s exhibit, “Antarctica: Seasons of Water and Ice,” is on display at UWF’s John C. Pace Library.

He says the photo exhibit was built into his research grant proposal to the National Science Foundation, fulfilling the requirement for an education and outreach component.

Such an exhibit, he proclaims, wasn’t much of a stretch, because of early career advice to invest in a good camera and always take it along.

“That first trip was about 4 months long, so it was pretty long, longer than what we do now,” he began.

“But, I think I shot 80 rolls of film during that trip, to give you an idea of how fascinated I was of …….

Source: https://www.wuwf.org/local-news/2021-10-31/uwf-exhibit-shows-beauty-and-fragility-of-the-antarctic