OAEs and FIDs
Pictures Database Request
OAE (American) - Old Antarctic Explorer - Someone who has been around in Antarctica for a while.
FID (British) - Falklands Islands Dependent - Current or former member of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey which later became the British Antarctic Survey.
Wintering usually confers automatic OAE or FID status
Dear OAE / FID,
For some time I have had a section on this site where people who have worked in Antarctica in the past can register their details to find old friends, the links to the sections are in the margin to the right.
There is a recurring theme I see from people who post their details looking for old friends they went south with other than wanting to re-make contacts.
Many have lost pictures that they used to have or simply didn't have many in the first place and would like some for themselves or to show to friends and especially family who came along long after they left Antarctica.
Do you have pictures from your time in Antarctica that you would like to share that are maybe languishing in a drawer or cupboard somewhere?
I am happy to assemble such pictures and publish them by location and date on CoolAntarctica.com. If you can do this, then please send me scans that are large as possible (up to max 4000px in the largest dimension) as jpgs. I can clean them up to some degree (the cleaner they are to start with the better), adjust horizons and balance colour etc. before publication (and sent you back the adjusted versions).
The easiest way to send them is via DropBox, let me know when you are ready and I will create a folder and send you the link by email to upload your pictures, alternatively, they could be sent by email or dvd.
Information with the pictures is also of great use, as much as possible. I can also scan a limited number of slides, though this will involve posting them here and back again.
Paul Ward
webmaster - CoolAntarctica and ex-Signy FID, '85 & '86 winters.
Updates
1 - Pictures - Thank you for those who have already sent me their pictures, I am posting them via this page as and when I have them ready for publication (it is rather time consuming!).
If you can help by submitting pictures of your own, please see here for details.
While there are plenty of great pictures of Antarctica
online of wildlife and scenery, those of life on bases
are less frequent and possibly of less interest to most
people. However to those who were there and for whom
it was often a significant part of their formative younger
years such pictures are the most fascinating of all.
I'm trying to help make public many of those
old pictures that people have hiding away half forgotten
that maybe they don't think are particularly interesting.
They are often of great value to those who didn't
take many or any pictures of their own, have lost them
over the years or in some cases to descendants who are
seeing pictures of dad (for e.g.) they have never seen
before. It is these more "ordinary" pictures that have
lasting appeal beyond yet another picture of a penguin
or iceberg.
I'm sure I did this already... every now and then I send out emails, a proportion of these bounce back as "not found", often because it was a former work email or an ISP that no longer exists, as there is no longer any way to make contact I delete the record to keep things as current as I can..