A Photographer's Passion for Polar Frontiers

Hungarian photographer Esther Horvath returned this past December from her latest polar region trip during which she spent about a month in Svalbard, a Norwegian archipelago in the Arctic Ocean. She tells Diplomacy&Trade about how she originally fell in love with that region, what is life like on expeditions like this and how all this is reflected in the exhibition she has in the Hungarian capital.

“My very first memories about the polar region are from when I was six years old and I saw the science program Delta on Hungarian television. I watched that every single week because I was so fascinated by the intro where I could see men marching in a snow storm. As a little girl, I wanted to feel this cold on my face. I dreamed about how I could experience feeling this cold biting my face. But I saw only men marching in the snow. We lived in the town of Sopron, close to the Austrian border, from where I was able to see sometimes the snowy mountains of the Alps. I always dreamed about going to these mountains but we lived behind the Iron Curtain and thus, the borders were closed. That also shows that already as a child, I was drawn to the cold regions. I loved the winter, which was my absolutely favorite season,” that is how Esther Horvath recalls her passion that eventually led her to capture life in the polar region.

Economist-turned-photographer
This was a dream that she could not realize for a very long time. Originally, she conducted economic studies, so, she is an economist by trade, and as such, she worked in the business sector for quite a while. However, it was very soon after the university years, at the age of 25, that she found her love for photography. “As I got my very first camera, I knew I wanted to become a photographer. And I also knew that I wanted to become a photographer who works on long, inspirational stories for the National Geographic or for the New York Times. I was 32 when I gave up a great position I had in Vienna and I moved to New York City to study at the International Center of Photography. After finishing that school, I knew that it was not enough. I had to stay in New York and have to find my way into professional photography. Two years later, I went to a portfolio review with two big projects: one documenting the life of the New York City Fire Department and the other about scientists working on saving endangered sea turtles. After this portfolio review, I got an email if I would be interested for an assignment starting in five days. On such short notice, I had to be in Alaska boarding the U.S. Coast Guard icebreaker, Healy, heading to the Arctic Ocean. I almost fell off the chair in my tiny little shoebox apartment in New York because I knew that this assignment – one in a million – would change my life,” she recalls. She went on this expedition and spent two weeks on board of the icebreaker. “During this trip, I fell in love so strongly with the polar region that already on the ship, I decided that I want to dedicate my life to the Arctic Ocean and I want to work with scientists.”

Time is precious on expeditions
Over the past decade, Esther Horvath traveled the Arctic region extensively from Alaska to Arctic Canada, to Greenland, to Svalbard, etc. As for life on these trips, she says “it very much depends on whether I travel by ship or which station I am staying at – it is very different. Until a year or so, ago, there was no internet connection. In those times, I went on an expedition with almost no connection to home or to the outside world and then returned 1-2-3 months later. Now, it is a big change that there is communication with your family, with your loved ones, with your partner, which is of course wonderful. But life there is generally much slower, it always feels like going back in time, to the ‘50s or maybe even earlier. It is because social life is very important. During an expedition, we are together 18 hours a day and most of the time, you are with a roommate in a tiny accommodation. So, there is very strong social bond and very strong social life there, which I sometimes miss when I come home. And you experience that social interaction seven days a week. I work every day, no exceptions, and days are very long there. I wake up early, at 6 o’clock. And I'm happy if I can go to bed at midnight and not at 2 a.m. because I've worked so long hours. That is because it's a very precious thing to be on an expedition and I want to use all the time to produce material, to produce photos, prepare exhibitions, maybe working on a book, creating video material and now, having Internet, I am also very active on social media when I travel.”

A work of passion
Esther Horvath says the pictures people can go to see at the Stars of the Polar Night exhibition in Budapest very much reflect the life she herself has experienced in the polar region. A special part of the exhibition that she highlights is a portrait series of women, which was inspired by her own experience as, for a long time, she had not seen any women in the polar regions before. “I thought this playground was only for men. Luckily, this changed after the 1990s. Until then, only few women were allowed to go on such expeditions. However, since the ‘90s, the landscape has changed and there are more and more women seen in polar regions. Many times, I get the question what it feels to be a woman under such circumstances. I must say I find a question like that disturbing because I always feel that in life, no matter what you do, what is important is whether you have passion for it and whether you like it. If you do, in that moment, nothing else matters. I know a lot of men who don't like the cold. They would not like to go on trips like this and I know many women who love the cold. So, your gender doesn't matter what you do in life as long as it is your passion. At the exhibition, you can see a portrait series of women who are passionate about the polar regions, who have deep love and connection to protect this beautiful area of the planet. Also important is the presentation of the scientific research going on there. Then, for instance, you can read information about how permafrost is changing, you can see other scientific aspects of what is happening along with a selection of images about what everyday life is like for these people working up there.”

For everyone to see
Regarding who she would recommend this exhibition to, the photographer says she basically wants everyone to see those images. “I think it's very much suited also for children and young adults as these images are there even for children to get inspired, to see these great women, see what scientific research is like in the Arctic, learn about polar night when the sun disappears completely for almost four months. When I do a video call with my friends from there, I know that it's night all they long, but I'm still always surprised that it's 2 p.m. or lunchtime, and it's completely dark. So, I definitely recommend this exhibition to the young, but it's also for adults who want to learn and go deeper into the research.”
She adds, however, that this work what she does is also for politicians. “It's also for decision makers to show the changes that are happening, show what we experience in the polar regions, what the facts what we have there are, and also to show the dedication of people because all these institutes are supported by governments, and they are doing an extremely important work. So, it's really from general public to the decision-making politicians.”