In January last year John Conn took a 45-day photographic tour that took him to Antarctica, and if most of his images from the continent seem to depict it as unexplored territory, it's no accident—though it's not exactly deliberate, either.

John carried with him the stories of Ernest Shackleton and Robert Scott, Antarctic explorers whose exploits he'd researched for a novel, and his fascination with Antarctica and the hardships endured by the explorers undeniably influenced the look of his photographs.

As it turned out, he was able to combine his trip to Antarctica with a visit to Patagonia, another place of interest for him. "I'd seen great photographs of the mountains of Patagonia," he says, "and since I was going to be in the area, I decided I wanted to see for myself."

Which is pretty much how John goes at things: always seeking to communicate his view of the things that interest him, to tell his story in his own way. And so he is one of the unclassifiable photographers whose work includes photojournalism, landscapes, underwater images, architecture, interiors and fine art. He got his start as a Marine combat photographer and later earned a BFA in photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. A selection of images from his New York City subway series is in the permanent collection of the Museum of the City of New York. He has said, "My photography is my diary. This is my life, this is what I've done."

His story of Antarctica, told with Shackleton and Scott in mind, is one of a dangerous, forbidding landscape, an inhospitable place to be explored but first to be respected, if not feared. "This is the territory the explorers saw, and it's also their fate," John says. "I didn't travel thousands of miles to take only pictures of penguins, tourists, research installations or Zodiacs coming out of the water. There's menace here, and the feel of it stays with you even as you're making your way back to the ship; it still towers over you. And when you've left the continent, it's still in your memory."

John was once asked by a magazine editor, "Who's been your biggest influence?" He answered, "Me."

"I'm driven," he admits. "I have my own ideas, and I rely on my own judgment. Given the chance to take pictures, my goal is to get it right. That's what a photographer does—brings back pictures that say, ‘That's where I was, that's what I saw, that's what I felt.