<i>Overwhelming expanse of white</i>

'Starting a sledge-ride', a photograph by Enam Ul Haque(Left) and the photographer holding the Bangladeshi flag at North Pole

White, white everywhere. In the North Pole there is hardly any fauna or flora, so Enam Ul Haque had very few objects or colours to focus on. His recent solo photo exhibition, held at his residence in Mahakhali DOHS, Dhaka, is based on his trip to the North Pole.
“My exhibition 'Hundred colours of white' highlights my expedition to the North Pole. This was a marathon in April this year called 'Coolest marathon' where participants ran 42 kilometres very near the North Pole. Our marathon began on the 8th of April. There were 40 people including five women. I was not racing, I was photographing the event.
“Apart from the marathon runners, I photographed ice, petrel, reindeer and the huskies that carried us. This was in Norway's northernmost territory called Svalbard. These were from outside the icecap,” Enam said.
What was memorable for Enam was that the five women in the race beat him. This he found quite embarrassing. He had gone to Antarctica in 1997 and that was the subject of his first exhibition. In that expedition he had captured many more things in his lens.
In one of the photographs are the curled up dogs with the grey and white snow in the backdrop and forefront. People are seen tying them up to the sledge. In another photo we see a red ship “Noorderlicht” which is built for tourists.
“We saw white snow all around and were far from human habitation,” Enam said. Dogs and people are included in the picture. They stopped there and had biscuits and coffee.
One sees the frozen ice over the ocean in the form of hillocks in another picture. There is the picture of the petrel, which is the last sign of life as the group proceeded to the North Pole. The beautiful white tail and blotches of white on the wings lent beauty to its brown feathers.
“Ice is supposed to be white but it has hues of green and blue. It depends on the thickness of the ice, said Enam. One of the members was a Bangladeshi student from Finland whom Enam asked to hold the Bangladeshi flag to get a shot of the “red of green” against the pristine white backdrop.
A group of people are seen in shades of black, brown and orange while the background is in shades of blue and white. There is a picture of one of the two helicopters that were used for moving the people and for rescue purposes. The bright North Pole sun has also been captured by the lens.
“The trip to the North Pole was much more difficult that the one to Antarctica. It was colder and more strenuous. Around the South Pole there are penguins, petrels, seals, bears. Given an option I will go ten times to Antarctica but never again to the North Pole,” says Enam.
People know Enam as a bird photographer who had his first exhibition in 1997. He has held many exhibitions including ones in Iran, Singapore and Indonesia.