Landscape nominee

The images in this series show scenes of intricate simplicity from throughout the highest latitudes of our Earth's Arctic region. I've chosen views of barren, ice-rent cliffs on Spitzbergen in Norway's Svalbard archipelago; Icy peaks and glacial flows from the Franz Josef Land archipelago in Russia's remote Arctic north, and vistas of desolate sea ice at the geographic North Pole itself - far from the nearest coastline. As a glaciologist and guide I work in these areas regularly and the stark simplicity that can be captured through photographing such lands in monochrome really seizes the essence of what it is that draws me back to the Polar regions time and time again. These places are of course ever changing, but in a sense they remain timeless; as alien a realm as you're likely to find without leaving our planet altogether.

Colin Souness is a Scottish-born glaciologist and Polar Regions guide with experience of working throughout the Arctic and in the peninsular region of Antarctica. He is a keen writer as well as a photographer and has penned numerous articles and one book about expeditionary experiences both at high latitudes and in remote areas of the globe. For him though, it is often the unique views that remote regions travel brings which make the biggest impact, and photography helps to capture those views for posterity in an ever-changing world.