Kieran Lawton has had a varied involvement with Antarctica for over a decade. He has visited 16 times; as an expedition leader, mountain guide, field training officer and biologist. He’s now working on seabird conservation, as part of the Antarctic Marine Living Resources program at the Australian Antarctic Division.

Kieran says of his photo:

Antarctica is the sort of place where you feel that anything could happen. For me one of the most enduring qualities is its capacity for surprise; the explosive exhale of a Weddell seal beneath, while stepping astride a tide-crack; an iceberg the size of a battleship rolling across your path; the wonder of a breathtaking panorama revealed behind a subsiding blizzard. This photo reminds me of one of those times. The peaks, on the spine of the Antarctic Peninsula, were new to us and leapt out of the landscape after a week-long white-out. It’s a place where the elements dictate the terms and we become onlookers. There’s something uplifting about having somewhere like that in the world.