Stanfords gets Cold

Thijs Heslenfeld/ PhotoIcon.com

Here at Stanfords, we’re always on the look-out for special books, maps and knick-knacks that other travel bookshops might miss. And Cold – Sailing to Antarctica, a stunning photography book by Thijs Heslenfeld, is no exception. We’re currently the only stockist of his book in the whole of the UK.

Cold Sailing To Antarctica
Thijs, a photographer from The Netherlands, set off for the Antarctic with a mission: he wanted true adventure. He boarded the Dutch barque Europa and sailed from Argentina to South Africa on a journey of discovery to some of the loneliest, coldest and most beautiful places on earth.

Along the way he photographed life and death – from baby penguin to whale carcass. Thijs captures not only the beauty of the landscape – the breath-taking ice fjords, the azure waters – but the smaller, less obvious beautiful details, such as a close-up on the feet of a King penguin’s feet, where you feel you could almost touch the bird’s black scaly talons and clean white down of his diminutive legs.

As well as the sumptuous photos, the ship’s logbook is also recreated, as written by the Europa’s captain, Klaas Gaastra, revealing the dangers and joys of life on the ocean wave.

Cold - Sailing To Antarctica, Whale Carcass

Altogether, Cold reveals fresh and surprising portraits of a spellbinding part of the world.

As Thijs himself says: “This book is about places where life is as pure as it gets. The photographs tell a story about beauty and decay, fear and hope, about black and white. They are, after all, about life.”