Freeze Frame

To coincide with International Polar Year, the National Maritime Museum displays some of the earliest photographs of the Arctic, its landscape and people, in a new temporary exhibition in the Queen's House. Freeze Frame will showcase a selection of prints taken from the Museum's world-class historic photographs collection. The exhibition will look at two expeditions to the Arctic under Captain Edward Inglefield in 1854, and Captain George Nares in 1875-76. Both expeditions used photographic processes that were in their infancy, having been announced to the public only a few years before. Both processes involved a significant amount of bulky equipment and chemicals in order to develop the negatives. However, the technique used by Nares had a shorter exposure time allowing more photographs of the expedition activities to be recorded.