Mark Mahaney

“Polar Night”, the most recent project by California-based photographer Mark Mahaney, documents the state of perpetual darkness that embraces the town of Utqiagvik, in the northernmost part of the United States, during 65 days every year. Recently made into a book by Texas-based independent art book publisher Trespasser, “Polar Night” is Mahaney’s first published photobook.

Polar Night

Mark Mahaney’s Polar Night is a passage through a rapidly changing landscape in Alaska’s northernmost town of Utqiagvik. It’s an exploration of prolonged darkness, told through the strange beauty of a snowscape cast in a two-month shadow. The unnatural lights that flare in the sun’s absence and the shapes that emerge from the landscape are unexpectedly beautiful in their softness and harshness. It’s hard to see past the heavy gaze of climate change in an arctic town, though Polar Night is a visual poem about endurance, isolation, and survival.

To view more of Mark Mahaney’s work please visit his website.