Image of Contrasts

by Joseph Ricketts

Image © Joseph Ricketts 2025

This image probably best conveys the feelings instilled in me while on the 2025 Expedition. 

Huddled amongst the scree and debris in the foreground, the iconic, symbolic Svalbard Poppy. While far behind the Tunabreen tumbles into the sea.

The juxtaposition of the poppy with the glacier helps to convey the deception of the landscape, the sheer lack of scale experienced in the field, while drawing attention to the enormity of the struggle faced by life in such a harsh, desolate environment. 

Flowering for only a few short weeks under the midnight sun after years of long preparation, the poppy is also a gentle reminder of the fragility and rapidity of the environment, framed by glacial striations to the horizon, evidence of its slow, destructive power.

For me, this is an image of contrasts, of absolutes and delicate balance. Of hope, of peril and unassailable scale. 

It's also just quite pretty.