Polar Souls

"Polar Souls" is a bold project that reflects the dedication and determination emblematic of faculty at LaGuardia Community College, who, every day, demand more of themselves and their students, in and out of the classroom.

Scott Sternbach, the director of LaGuardia Community College's photography department, has finally fulfilled a lifelong quest: to travel to one of the last untouched ecosystems on earth—the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) in Alaska—and photograph the native population and the stunning natural beauty of the region.

"Because ANWR is caught in the crosshairs of the energy crisis and the actual effects of global warming," Mr. Sternbach said, "there could not be a more crucial place for an artist's eye."

View a preview of of Mr. Sternbach's work in ANWR featured in The New Yorker - Photo Booth: Bipolar: Scott Sternbach at the Earth's Extremes .

Through a grant from the City University of New York, he and a LaGuardia commercial photography student and an alumna who served as his assistants, Youngkyu Park and Dora Yordanova, photographed with an 8"x10" view camera the inhabitants, landscape, flora and fauna in and around Arctic Village, a remote and sparsely populated community located in the center of this vast, pristine region that encompasses approximately 20 million acres. Mr. Sternbach also videotaped the Gwich'in and Inupiat people, as well as the many outfitters and rangers who guide adventurers through this beautiful and untamed wilderness.

The ANWR expedition is the second phase of Mr. Sternbach's "Polar Souls" project. In 2008, he received a prestigious National Science Foundation grant to create a series of portraits of "Antarctic Souls," the 30-some odd researchers, biologists, cooks, pilots and boat captains who are involved in a federal project to study the effects of global warming on the region. The American Museum of Natural History featured a selection of "Antartic Souls" in its "Race to the End of the Earth" exhibit in 2010.