Pole to Pole – The Photographs

Pole to Pole – The Photographs is a large coffee-table style book containing pictures taken by Basil Pao, who was the stills photographer on the team that made the Pole to Pole with Michael Palin TV program for the BBC.

Michael Palin's name is prominently displayed on the cover, and he has contributed a one-page Foreword, plus approximately 16 pages of text (two-page introductions to each of the eight chapters).

The rest of the book consists of Basil Pao's photographs, each with a short text indicating what the picture is about and where it was taken. Some of the pictures are displayed as impressive two-page spreads. A majority of the pictures show the people they encountered along the way, some as informal portraits, some showing people engaged in various activities. There are also many beautiful landscapes plus a few pictures of monuments and interesting buildings, etc.

The book is organized in eight chapters:

North Pole to Helsinki - Svalbard, Norway and Finland

Tallinn to Odessa - Estonia, Russia, Belarus and Ukraine

Istanbul to Aswan - Turkey, Greece, Cyprus and Egypt

Wadi Halfa to Gallabat - Sudan

Metema to Moyale - Ethiopia

Moyale to Mpulungu - Kenya and Tanzania

Mpulungu to Cape Town - Zambia, Zimbabwe and South Africa

Santiago to South Pole - Chile and Antarctica

Seven of the pictures, taken at and near the North Pole and the South Pole, were not taken by Basil Pao, as there was no room for him in the small airplanes used at the two extremes of the trip.

One amazing statistic mentioned by Michael Palin in the introduction to this book is that Basil Pao took 30,000 pictures during the 5½ months that the trip lasted. 30,000 pictures is approx. 850 rolls of film or approx. 200 pictures and 6 rolls of film every day.