When travel junkie Joel Witwer scored a job at a cafeteria on Antarctica, he couldn’t believe his luck.

Witwer had been determined to visit every continent before he reached 30. Antarctica struck him as harsh, desolate and hostile to human life – and it only made him more desperate to visit.

“It’s the most isolated continent in the world, with zero permanent residents,” Witwer told The Independent. “It was a place I had no reason to be, but one I so desperately wanted to experience. It was never intended to sustain human life – so to be there for a season, to live in those conditions, felt like I’d got the chance to be the sort of pioneer or explorer I’ve read so many stories about.”

Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show Show all 13 1 /13 Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This is one of those moments - one of my absolute favourites in 25 years of wildlife photography. I had found a parent standing with its chick, when its partner came over and started to feed the chick regurgitated krill. They were stood like that for only a few seconds, and though I managed to take several pictures, this was the one where the chick looked right at me." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This picture was taken in the Antarctic, from the stern of a Russian icebreaker. I often work off expeditions like this. These are crabeater seals in the Weddell Sea - though they actually eat krill. I managed to catch someone, a tourist, crouching there, watching the seals, and I thought it made for a nice image." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "I took this in the Russian Arctic from a Russian helicopter on a trip to the North Pole. Polar bears' favourite prey are Ring Seals. I love photographing polar bears - they're beautiful animals, and they have a huge variety of behaviour, from hunting, to being incredibly gentle with their cubs. Here, I like the simple graphic image of blood against snow - though it's a shot which people either love or hate." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "That's the Hubbard Glacier in Alaska in July. There are people in a boat in front of the glacier - I wanted to give some scale of this huge wall of ice. The detail of the ice is amazing; its colour is exactly as it appeared in real life. The intense blue comes from older ice which has had the air compressed out of it." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This won me a prize at the International Photographer of the Year awards. It's of people standing on the Ross Ice Shelf, which is the world's largest ice shelf - bigger than France! Shackleton and Scott both had to cross in on their way to the South Pole." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This is a volcano call Tyatya, part of a chain of active volcanoes in the Kuril Islands, between Kamchatka in Russia and Hokkaido in Japan. It's a somma volcano, so it has a new cone rising up from the middle of the collapsed one. I felt the stunning clouds at the top made for a dramatic shot." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This is the actual North Pole. Whereas the South Pole is on land, the North Pole is situated in a frozen sea, which has different ice thickness throughout the year. In this instance, I visited on a Russian icebreaker called Kapitan Khlebnikov. I spend between about six to eight months per year out of the country on expeditions like this." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "There is a famous photograph by Herbert Ponting, who took incredible pictures on Scott's expedition a hundred years ago, which is very similar to this shot. In fact, I saw this hole in the ice, and remembered his picture. In the end, I waited and waited and waited, and eventually an Emperor Penguin toddled over on his own, allowing me to get a couple of shots. That's the thing with wildlife photography, you have to be very patient. Sometimes for weeks!" Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This is one of my favourite photographs. It was taken on "50 Years of Victory", which is the largest nuclear icebreaker in the world. The bear is standing stock still; it was tracking a seal, which had just disappeared under the ice, and he's waiting for it to reappear. I just love the patterns in the snow, and the contrast of all the colours. It also sums up polar bears: living in an incredibly hostile environment, but perfectly adapated to it." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "These are Adélie Penguins in the Antarctic Ross Sea. So many people have commented to me that it looks like a diorama in a museum with penguins superimposed on top of it, but it is real. A lot of things had to come together to make this picture work - I needed the light, the colony of penguins, and the weather conditions in the background. They're very characterful birds, these penguins, and I think it shows." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "This was an amazing chap, a Greenlander who sadly passed away quite recently. He's wearing clothes his wife had made for him out of polar bear, caribou and fox skins. I had a great time with him on the floe edge with Inuit hunters teaching their children and grandchildren the traditional hunting techniques. That particular day was pretty darn chilly, as you can probably tell." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood Dramatic pictures of the Antarctic go on show "Me with my camera, a Canon 1DS III." Taken from Cold Places by Sue Flood

Now 28 and working as a photographer for an international aid organisation in Niamey, Niger, Witwer was born in the US, but grew up in Ireland and has been travelling for most of his adult life.

As he neared the age of 27, he’d already lived in Europe, visited Asia and was about to start studying abroad in New Zealand. But he realised he was quickly nearing his deadline to reach the world’s most inhospitable continent.

Then he stumbled upon the United States Antarctic Program (USAP) at McMurdo, one of the nation’s research stations in the Great White South. After scoring a job at the cafeteria there, Witwer swapped the comfort of suburban Rochester, New York, to live in a dorm for six months with scientists and contractors, whose jobs ranged between everything from carpentry to fire-fighting. In September 2015, he landed on the icy tundra via a military Boeing C-17.

For the first handful of weeks, the sun only set for a few hours a day. But by December – the Antarctic summer – the sun stopped going down all together. Nothing could prepare Witwer for what he described as the “sheer whiteness of the place”.

“I lived in the northern US for many years so I was used to snow, but not flat fields of white as far as the eye can see. Jagged white peaks lined the horizon. Everything was greyscale. Stepping off that plane for the first time felt like stepping onto a different planet. I was not prepared for the enormity of it all.”

What he had feared most, however, was the sense of isolation.

“The base is home to about 1,000 people during the summer months, but knowing there is no other form of civilisation close by can be daunting,” Witwer said.

Joel Witwer in his extreme cold weather gear (Joel Witwer)

“This is something they address during the job interview, as it is never ideal for someone to have to leave the ice before the end of their contract.”

To ensure Witwer and his colleagues would be up to the challenge of six months in Antarctica, his employers stressed that normal comforts – like nipping away for a weekend break – would be impossible. McMurdo would be everything they knew for 24 weeks.

However, as Witwer settled in, he was surprised to find he didn’t feel lonely. “There was this awareness that we were isolated from the veins of humanity,” he says, “but the community down there is close-knit and looks after each other. You are not alone.”

Working six days a week for 10 hours a day, as he was obliged to do, helped. And he didn’t exactly have to deal with the same kind of hardships suffered by polar explorers like Ernest Shackleton. His spare time was divided between the gym, two pubs and the coffee house at the base.

Volunteers would also organise activities including language lessons, CrossFit sessions, and snowmobile excursions to ice caves. And each year, McMurdo residents hold an “IceStock” music festival, where bands that formed earlier in the season get to play to a captive audience.

Plus, Witwer was fortunate enough to be there in summer. The temperature hovered around the 0C mark, and, according to him, “it was at times warmer than Rochester”. The USAP also provides everyone on base with extreme cold weather gear.

“I imagine a winter contract would be much more challenging both mentally and physically,” he said. “The McMurdo population plunges to around 200 during the winter and the cold is much more bitter, with regular, raging storms.”

As the months rolled on, Witwer says it became clear to him that Antarctica attracts a certain type of adventurer: “They are avid travellers looking to buck convention.”

He said there was an even split between men and women and that most tended to be in their thirties. “A lot of them will work hard over the length of their contract, save up all their money, and then spend the off-season travelling the world.

“They like to dream big and aren’t afraid to think outside of what mainstream culture tells us to do. I used to think of myself as rather adventurous and creative until I met these people. Now I realise I’m only getting started.”

But Witwer says he would recommend visiting Antarctica to anyone for the “sheer, vast freedom” of a continent unmarred by human presence.

“When you are in the middle of it, the continent seems endless in every direction,” he said. “It is easy to forget that life outside exists. But, for me, it’s the thrilling combination of fear and beauty that elevates the place.”

For travellers planning on heading there, Witwer urges they do so responsibly. “With the growing interest in Antarctic tourism comes the growing human impact on the continent,” he added.