Laura Morton

Born in Toronto, Canada, Laura Morton began working as a fashion model while still in high school, and moved to New York City under contract with FORD models in 1981. Drawn repeatedly to Europe and other exotic locations on assignment, Morton decided in 1985 to base herself in Paris, France. With an unquenchable thirst to see the world, she planned extended working trips to different countries around the globe. With the world as a classroom, she furthered her education learning languages and studying local architecture, history and culture. Photography was a constant traveling companion, documenting the journeys, photographing models and experimenting with fashion. A transition into the world of photography was inevitable.
A course in photojournalism with Paris Match in 1987 spurred on a fresh point of view (telling a story with pictures) and a new group of friends inspired adventure. She illustrated two mountain climbing adventures, Kilimanjaro: The Beautiful Trek and Mount Fuji: Sunrise at the Top and began working in black and white, completing a series of portraits, The Camel Drivers of Lanzarote.
Preparation for the Antarctica expedition began early in 1989. Private study of camera technique, darkroom and the exploration of landscape photography as fine art further developed the vision that created Antarctica.
The resulting photographic essay was completed in early 1990 and has been widely published. A one-person exhibition was presented of this work at the Museo de Fotografia Contemporani di Brescia in Italy in 1991. The Whale Tail image received the Ilford Prix du Jury award in 1991. Portfolios have been published in Foto Practica (Italy), Camera & Darkroom (USA) and Kodak Photographie Magazine (France).
Prints from this museum show reside in private and institutional collections.

Antarctica
In December 1989, I borded the UAP Antarctica in Punta Arenas, Chile. The specially designed support vessel for the Transantarctica Expedition had a month to spare before circumnavigating the white continent to collect the eight-man team of international explorers, manhauling across the South Pole. During this window of time, a dozen artists, scientists and adventurers had been invited to share with the small crew a rare and intimate experience-our own unforgettable exploration of the Antarctic Peninsula.
A turbulent crossing of the Drake Passage led us towards the vast frozen continent at the bottom of the earth. It's quite another world at Latitude 68 degrees south. Just a mineral desert of rock and ice, played with by such unfamiliar light. It's summertime and the sun circles eliptically barely dipping below the horizon for an hour or two, and then rises again, just a few degrees. My inner timing was off, and senses of smell, touch, and hearing had all but shut down in the cold silence. Except for sight. Every nuance of this frozen paradise appeared to me accentuated...so many textures sculpted into the snow. The drama of the sky and shadow was ever changing, yet the stillness prevailed.
I experienced stillness and awe.
Laura Morton