People tend to report walking into the hut Captain Robert Falcon Scott used as his base for his historic pioneering exhibitions in the Antarctic to be a very emotional experience.
But Dunedin born and bred photographer Jane Ussher felt none of that. She was completely and utterly terrified.
Ussher had approached then Prime Minister Helen Clark asking for an opportunity to travel to the Antarctic to document Scott’s and Sir Ernest Shackleton’s huts in a way that only a still photographer, her in particular, could do.
"I was terrified, because to get down to the ice, especially for that length of time, you've really got to talk up your game."
Ussher flew to Antarctica in 2008 as part of the Antarctica New Zealand Media Programme. It was her first big commission since leaving her job after 29 years as chief photographer at The Listener.
"So up until then, I was best known for portraits, [for] which I used a tripod and a camera and set up framing. This was going to be my first time of actually seeing whether what I said I could do, I'd be able to do."
Walking into the hut that day, Ussher began to realise the enormity of what she had taken on. The interior of the huts, Scott’s in particular, were very dark, broken only by shafts of bright light coming through the windows.
"So this was the first real exploration into still taking, what I call still lives, but of interior spaces."
She selected to use a pivot head camera and take vertical slices of an image which could be built into a horizontal image. Light was controlled by soft butter muslin held over the outside of the window, bounce boards and torches.
"We were just tireless in the way that we tried to get light into areas that had never ever seen light before."
As the process was slow, she had a lot of time to think about what she wanted to do beyond just documentation.
"I was able to really clearly see all these other things that probably I wouldn't have seen if I was just going through with a normal camera in a normal way."
A unique opportunity presented itself when due to weather and other events, she was given extra time on the ice, and it happened to coincide with a team coming down to help preserve the hut from sea ice, which required many of the hut’s artefacts to be packed up.
That meant Ussher had a rare opportunity to photograph items that may have only been partially seen as they were in drawers, cupboards or on shelves.
"So apart from all the time I had in the hut, that is one of the things that makes some of these images exceptional because it was an exceptional situation.
"So we were able to take those out. And, of course, immediately you think, why does somebody bring dress shoes down to Antarctica?"
These experiences have stayed with Ussher, so when she was approached by Milford Gallery to exhibit her work, it was these images she thought would resonate best with people.
"Then when we talked about having the exhibition, I certainly immediately knew which images, out of all the images I'd taken in the huts, I thought I wanted to see as prints."
Part of her reasoning was that the book the photos were initially published in — Still Life (2010) — is sold out, and public exhibitions of the photographs have only been held in Auckland, Christchurch and Korea.
So there has never been an opportunity to see the prints in Dunedin, Ussher’s home town, although she lives in Auckland these days.
Showcasing the photos this way would also continue her original goal of giving people the chance to see inside the huts, something most people will never get to do.
She also thought the exhibition would be an interesting opportunity to see if people have an appetite for hanging the images in their homes.
"It was something I wanted to explore."
The works she selected are a mix of ones that are personal to her and those that she thinks are beautifully composed, or in which the lighting is perfect.
"They all had qualities which resonate with what I think makes a good photograph, or the sort of photograph that I take, and a good version of it. Because I've got very clear ideas about what is a good and bad photograph when I'm the photographer."
Looking back at the Antarctic work more than a decade on, she is still very happy with the way the images look. Given the limitations with light and time, she does not think she could have done anything much differently.
"Sometimes going in without those preconceived constructs, you're actually able to be more creative than you might have been otherwise."
Potentially though, she does think she may have taken a closer look at each man’s bunk, because they each personalised their space.
"I think now, based on what I know about people's spaces, I'd have looked far more closely at the way each man arranged his tiny personal space."
To Ussher, who was made a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2009, the editing process is vital. She can spend up to an hour working out the framing of an image and then wait however long it takes for the light to be right.
"So even before I've taken the image, I've actually really understood what I'm trying to achieve. Working out which of those images you may have taken during the day is the one that is most satisfying."
But she also wanted to put those personal photographs in context and thought people would want to see more of Scott’s hut.
Seeing them will be a very different experience to that of opening her first illustrated book of her own work, which was Still Life. The quality of that book has set the high standard for every book she has done since.
"I'm often going back to my books. I love illustrated books. I'm sitting in my office now, and one of my walls is just full of illustrated books, the whole bookcase. And there's not one book that I've done, illustrated book that I've done that I'm not proud of."
With her book on Dunedin historic home Olveston just out, Ussher is now working on a project with artist Terry Stringer, documenting not his work but his process, life and collections, and is about to start a second Rooms book. Her 2023 book of interiors won the New Zealand Booklovers Award Best Lifestyle Book.
"With Terry, it's very much fly-on-the-wall stuff, which is pushing me, who likes to frame everything, out of my comfort zone, and then I can collapse back into my still-life rooms, you know, way of doing things, which is a comfort, which I just feel very secure in."
Finding interiors to feature in her Rooms books comes down to the odd things she discovers in a space.
"It's the idiosyncrasies, the eccentricities, that appeal to me, that I can walk into that room and I know immediately something about that person. I kind of get drawn down into these rabbit holes of people's obsessions."
Many of her photographs have become records of New Zealand’s past, of buildings that might not last the distance due to the cost of upkeeping them, such as in her Woolsheds and Worship books.
"100-year-old buildings actually do need maintenance. And especially in woolsheds, if they're no longer being used, churches, if the congregation has been diminished, they become a liability."
Her passion for these projects has not diminished.
"I actually think that Olveston is a glorious book. I'm just so pleased that Olveston asked me to be the photographer on that, because to do a project like that, it's what I get up in the morning for."
She believes the older photographers get, the more self-assured they become and as a result are more open to taking risks because they have a strong basis for what they know works.
"I think I'm lucky that I've still got my good health and a lot of energy, plus I've got [a] really, really strong network of publishing and design people to support me."
To see:
"STILL LIFE — Inside the Antarctic Hut of Robert Falcon Scott", Milford Gallery, Dunedin, until Nov 25.
