South Pole Dance

So you’ve probably heard by now that Kate Upton went through some pretty harsh experiences on her Antarctica shoot. She ended up with frostbite, as well as temporary partial deafness and blindness. Pretty terrifying.

While I’m sure SI took precautions (and didn’t just toss Kate out there with no consideration or consultation), it seems pretty irresponsible to expose a model to that much physical danger just from being outside, and nearly naked at that.

Other models have shot in the snow. Vendela, Ashley Richardson, and Ingrid Seynhaeve all shot in Alaska (1993).

Bridget Hall shot in Chile (2005).

But Antarctica is a whole separate animal.

I’ll tell you what, though. The photos are pretty lovely, I have to admit. This might be my favorite:

If I sound a bit begrudging about it, it’s because I was kind of all set to roll my eyes at this shoot. It’s no secret that I find Kate a bit overexposed, no pun intended. Antarctica seemed like a gimmicky location. And there was that mysterious Oreo from the TMZ leak back in December (what became of that anyway?).

And while there are a couple shots featuring that patented Kate Upton boob-spillage…

…the more I’ve perused them, the more I find a lot of the photos very pretty, even elegant.

This one is a plain-old bombshell shot.

Say what you want about her, she suffered for her art this year. And during an era when I’ve wondered if we’ll ever see another truly iconic SI swimsuit shot, she may have added a genuinely timeless photoshoot to the canon.

Cheers, Kate. And may it all be lush, tropical SI locations from here on out.